 Alright, so each of you will have six minutes. Alright, so if you would join us please, I appreciate you being here. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me. Thank you very much to ProSumers International. I'm very happy to be here and of course this issue ties right into much of what we've done at the county. As you know, I've been a county commissioner for 16 years and before that I've stayed revved for four years in the Texas House. I've always heard that one out of four people have a mental health condition of some sort and so that really gives you a sober thought about who all is out there. What happens at the county because your major mental health institution here besides the jail which is the major mental health care provider in Bear County unfortunately is the Center for Health Care Services. And they are basically a county run entity. They are funded in part by the county of Bear and the university health system which is your Bear County hospital district. They are, they've got an impossible task almost because the state of Texas has so incredibly underfunded mental health care. Now notwithstanding that Leon Evans who is the head of the Center for Health Care Services is a national class leader who has consistently delivered great leadership in a state that has historically underfunded mental health care. I think at best we're probably somewhere in the middle of the pack. We used to be 50th or 51st in per capita mental health care funding in Texas depending on whose stats you believed or what survey was done. I think we're probably closer to 35 or somewhere thereabouts today which is not very proud when you, a proud statement when you consider how large we are. The Center for Health Care Services under the leadership of Leon Evans has developed a curriculum for school police in the United States. They have a restoration center where they will serve 26,000 and this year 26,000 consumers, prosumers hopefully. And thanks for saying prosumers because that really tells us about the need to get ahead of the power curve in dealing with these patients and these needy individuals who need that help. The current system reacts without a whole lot of discretion oftentimes. We have to work on de-escalation techniques. The CIT training that the city and the county participate in but is essentially driven by the Center for Health Care Services teaches law enforcement officers how to not overreact when you're called to the scene of a person who's having a mental health episode and how to de-escalate the situation, kind of talk them down into a mode where they can get the treatment that they really, really need. And I was really proud to be there at almost every one during my 16 years on the court of their training sessions where they trained 75 to 100 police officers or sheriff's officers in how they should deal with these folks instead of tasing them, instead of shooting them, instead of putting them in a headlock and throwing them on the ground and getting all crazy. How does a police officer who has historically been taught to use their muscle, use their brain and help this person to functionality instead of more dysfunction? We want to encourage people to concentrate on their well-being and not their challenges or their illness. We have a crisis center, as most of y'all know, and there's a respite capacity there for three to four days at this, the Drexel Street is a facility that's near Page Middle School and that's helpful. But in Texas, Barrett County is 49 statewide, I understand, in per capita funding. And the funds are not equitably distributed across this state. So that's something we all have to work on. The legislature's meeting, you have an opportunity to contact your representative, your senator, the governor, the lieutenant governor, and try to get them to realize it's not good enough for Texas to be so far in the back of the bus with respect to funding. So I want to again thank Posumers International for hosting and highlighting the need for mental health care approaches, both funding as well as treatment and for a greater understanding amongst our citizenry as to the struggles that people are in and how we might best deal with those struggles so that people can return to a good, healthy, functional life and not be further harmed by the afflictions that they've experienced in their lives. So thank you so much. Thank you. My name is Cynthia Brim and I am running for mayor. The reason that I'm running for mayor is primarily to fight the corruption, to fight the wasteful spending of our tax dollars, and thirdly, the oppression that's going on here in the city. I notice this gentleman has a sign back there. That's absolutely correct. You know what's going to happen to the residents on the west side? That is a serious issue we need to deal with. Who am I? I am you. I am you. You. You. You and you. I am a citizen that is concerned about the things that are going on in this city. We need fair and equitable representation, someone that is willing to stand up and do that which is right. Instead of being dictated to we need someone that's going to represent what our needs are within the community. I want to be that voice piece for you. My background includes marketing and advertising. I led a successful career for 30 years. I'm also a military family member. My husband is currently deployed in Afghanistan. Why? Because Obama put hiring freeze on all the government jobs so he's over there putting food on our table. I have also an extensive background in politics. I've worked for several years in the background helping other people to get elected into office. When I came here in 2007 I said, you know, I'm going to do this. My ancestral roots run deep in Texas history just to give you a little tidbit of information. My grandfather in 1731 was a colonist from Spain. And he was actually the first mayor of San Antonio. So my roots run deep. I decided I was going to do something because of all of the congestion. That was my primary focus here in San Antonio. But as I went out on the campaign trail I found out, as I said, the corruption surface. To give an example of that, the people at La Vida, you know, they were told to get out of their location. And these people had been there for, you know, since the 1940s. And then they asked city council and they asked the business development services, why do we have to leave? Well, we want to do something different. And so this summer, as of July 2015, these people have to leave. What the media put out or the city put out actually to the media was that they wanted to do something different which was connect Hemisphere Park to La Vida. So if in fact that is true, why did they have to leave? A good sign of corruption. Thirdly, the oppression. People on the west side are being harassed on a weekly basis to sell their property. Now, imagine if that were you. You don't want to be harassed. Now, I have a good example to share with you and that is a family that was on the east side. It was a senior citizen and a senior citizen couple. And the city kept charging them with fines and violations. And after a while, the little old man died and then left the entire state to the wife. And then she finally passed away. The city came in, took over the property and knocked down the building that they had and claimed it. So this is what's going on. Now, as far as, I know this is a forum for healthcare. What I would like to do is address that. I suffer from panic attacks. Why? I'm a type A personality. I am motivated to help others to reach out. And oftentimes I put a lot on my plate. So I know what it's like to have panic attacks. I know what it's like to see people that are suffering from depression. I have a sister that suffers from depression. And I have researched, not that I know a whole lot about it, what's going on here in the city, but I have researched how some of the citizens here that are homeless on the street that are being treated, I've seen it on television, you've seen it on Facebook. A recent incident where a homeless man in LA was tased and he put his hands up in defense to protect himself. And when he had enough of the tasing, he turned around and he shot him five times in the back. That's wrong. That's absolutely wrong. What is good to know is that the police officers here in San Antonio have received, under what portion I don't know, they have received some sensitivity training. And that's important. We need to know that and how to deal with these people that have these mental health issues. So I think we're on the right track. Furthermore, Mr. Evans, he set up the prototype model that everyone around this country is following. And I think that's important too because we're setting the standard. And so we have it here. It is funded by the state. It is funded by the county. And what's nice about it, it works on a slightly scale. I don't have to tell you about it. You know how the program works. What I am concerned about is how many people are they servicing on a weekly basis? How many people are they serving on a monthly basis? Is this enough? Do we need to expand that? And if so, how are we going to do it? How are we going to fund it? There is a need that is out there that has to be met. We have to address it. Not everyone is going to have the ability to fight back. So who is going to be their spokesperson? I want to be that spokesperson. I am a crusader. You give me a challenge. I will meet it. I may not know how, but I'll tell you this. I am a God-fearing woman and I know God will show me how to do this. I have zero political experience as far as in the arena, in and of itself, but I want you to give me that chance on May 9th. And I ask for your support because you have the control. It is in your power. On May 9th, I pray that you select Cynthia Brim for Mayor. My name is Cynthia and I am a candidate for Mayor. I am going to go ahead and talk to you all a little bit. It will probably open your eyes on mental health. A five-year plan to a biennial. I am going to speak about the budget process. Comptroller Republic of Counts is an agency that works for legislature. Our budget is formed and given to the Comptroller for assessments. The decision of legislature is legal in binding, which means they have the last say in the budget. Our Texas governor will be given a copy of that budget for a two-year term, a biennium. His copy is the one he uses to amend any dollars for savings and accounting purposes. Our city manager is the Comptroller of the city. She in turn gives Mayor and Council her proposed budget. As your next Texas Mayor, I will appropriate dollars from that budget, appeal any overages and sequestrate to a separate account for use and non-use to pay for all debts and saving to those accounts. Our city will have daycare for all that need. The owner of the daycare facility need to obtain a certificate through Health and Human Services and Child Protection Services. Each daycare facility will be at mandate to install cameras, which means this will aid in the safety of our children and the caregivers that are caring for our kids. Our city budget at this time is not balanced, but one billion dollars will be for city infrastructure. The added or missing 488 million will be for city employee raises and for new employment to our city. Maybe Taylor, she is expecting a 100 new city employee. To me that sounds good, I like that. I might have to add a little bit more based on the homeless project that I will have instituted. This project will house all homeless into their own home on a lot of 7100.00 square feet. 7100.00? I think it's 7100. In the barricade, they have 7100.00 square feet for the whole area of the property or location. It should house singles on this one lot, at least four to five studio homes in that area. All on that lot will split a yearly payment, which is a $600 a year payment for land tax. I will mandate our city constituents to pay $600 a year on commercial and residential property under 7100 square feet for each person that owns a home or that is a business owner. I will order a new tax in all. I will order a tax to all non-homeowners. They will pay a $0.50 or a $1 tax for education per paycheck. Tax dollars for our city will not fail. This is the Mental Health Assembled Forum. This information I mentioned will help clients in our city to heal. My name is Cynthia Teek of Austin and I'm a mayor for a candidate for mayor. Thank you. Sorry, I don't know y'all all by face. Okay, please go. Y'all got this better than I did. I'll just let y'all manage it. Is this a microphone? That is the microphone for the videotape. Okay, okay. It's a wireless mic. Thank you all for having us here today. And how are you doing? And thank you for lunch. Louder? Okay. My heart is in this community. I have volunteered here in Texas for over 40 years. My first volunteer position was with children with special needs with the Circle T Riding Therapeutic Center where they used horses to help these children and I became a board member because I was involved with them. I also have volunteered with children with MS and also whenever there's an opportunity to help children, I try to. I met this young boy recently who has no arms and it was very difficult for him and he told me this. He's about 15 years old because he's not able to use the restroom in public without his mother's assistance or without his brother's assistance because he can't undo his pants. But I believe that the most important issue here in San Antonio this year and has been for years is the discrimination against children and persons with special needs. I feel that, of course, we need to go ahead and have transparency in our city. We need to not raise tax dollars, but we also need to make sure that this is a thriving community and I don't believe that we can have that unless we help our persons and children with special needs. I mean that is such an important issue for San Antonio to be a healthy, thriving community. I have an experience at the courthouse. I was there. I worked from the bottom to the top. I was a work starting as a clerk and with two of us, we put together which is now the juvenile justice court systems which helps children throughout the county with the different issues they have because they have to deal with their own parents that have special needs, people with drug addictions, alcohol addictions. And so we need to start without funding, I believe, within the community to help these different children and to have an awareness throughout the city for persons with special needs. I think that is so important. Of course, it takes a while to get funding so when we can get funding, that would be good, but I think that as a community we need to work together for an awareness for these persons. During my time at the courthouse, I also was one of three people who put together the domestic violence courts here in San Antonio and their programs. Again, that is helping persons with special needs, especially so many children that have the scars from being in those homes of domestic violence. That is such an important issue. I mean, you have people being killed because of that, people committing suicide because of the domestic violence. So again, I feel like I helped persons with special needs because of that, listening to these stories and hearing these people going in and out of jail, their recidivism or their continued to, I guess, commit crimes because of their domestic violence issues. I know I suggested to some of the sheriff's office people that we need to try to educate these people while they're in jail, while they're sober so that they can actually begin to get the idea of what it is that they need to do to stop this revolving door of domestic violence within their families and causing those scars for children with special needs and themselves. You hear so many stories of people that need help. I'm sure most of y'all have met somebody that knows somebody that has had an issue with domestic violence and sometimes it's just that one man or one woman in the home that they are, what do you call it? They're abusive, verbally abusive. That's also a form of domestic violence. A lot of people don't realize it, but people that are abusive with the wife, that she can't do anywhere, she can't go out the door, she can't shop on her own. That man doesn't know that he's abusive, even though he is, but he's being, I guess, controlling. But at the same time, he's being abusive and the same thing can happen with the wife. You see the children have to deal with all of that so we have a child that maybe needs to have some type of therapy and I truly believe in art therapy like at the Incarnate Word Ecumenical Center where they have art therapy for children. I was in an accident one time and had to, it took me a long time to recover. I was in a wheelchair for a year, but I realized that art therapy is such a wonderful thing and what I'm trying to help in the community do with this mental illness awareness is that we need to go ahead and try to promote things like that like art therapy or community gardening where people can go into the community and garden because gardening is such a wonderful therapeutic thing for mental issues. It just kind of gets you outside, gets you around people that you don't know and it kind of helps to build your, I guess, build a pathway for you to get back into, you know, your normal living and at the Center for Healthcare Services at the Taven for Hope, I think that we need to go ahead and try to see how we can expand that and work on organizations that we already have rather than trying to secure new funding or until it gets here so that we can go ahead and be on a moving path to help people with special needs before we get funding. Thank you so much. Please, please. I have to go sleep over here. Yeah. Hello. My name is Paul Delmachello. I'm a Desert Storm veteran and as you know that our soldiers have been in war for about 12 years now, but when you have a situation where you're throwing veterans over there and havin' hope and mixin' the mean with everybody else, it just exacerbates our problems. The first thing I would do as mayor is those two buildings right across the street from the Greyhound station, those will be turned into shelters for veterans only. They will be dedicated for veteran psychiatrists and doctors and split that stuff off because I don't know if you knew this that veterans have probably some of the highest suicide rates in the whole entire country and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get different results. You have people have been in political office for almost 16 years and if you can't get it done in 16, you're not gonna get it done in four more. And one of these candidates is a pharmacist and if you look in the newspapers, it's saying that veterans, if you go right down Broadway Street, that's a big old billboard, the number one killer of veterans soldiers is prescription drugs. When you go to the VA, they like to talk to you about five minutes hand you some pills out the door and if you look in the Dallas Morning News about five to 10 years ago, this happened to one of us veterans. They put us in a psych ward for about two weeks okay here's some pills out the door, you go next door to the hospital with some Bacardi and Coke and kill yourself. So that's not gonna change with a pharmacist as your mayor. So the only thing I can tell you, the first thing that I said before is spitting us off from the other ones and as for, I'll just give you a situation myself. I rode a bicycle all the way from Houston, all the way to Victoria, Quarrel, Gonzalez, all the way to Austin, back down to San Antonio because I protest abortion. When I got here protesting abortion clinic right over here on St. Pedro, Officer Tiller and Officer Kelly thought I had lost it. Okay, yelling and screaming out there because if you ride 300 miles on a bicycle if you're ready, okay, I'm ready to talk to anybody. Then police came, you know, and basically we talked it out and there's another situation right over here in Travis Park. But it was too... sometimes I protested. But that time, Officer Tiller, Officer Kelly, handcuffs go over to the UTSS, UTSA. But the only thing is, I had been trained as an abortion protest of what I could and could not do. But a lot of people talk about homelessness have never been homeless. I have been homeless all across the state of Texas. My folks were Native Americans. We fought for all of this property, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. And the only thing I can tell you, if these politicians are not talking about a growing this economy, talking about building skyscrapers so that we're not sprawling this city out because when you ride around on a bed and you see some of these people walking around talking to themselves that may not be on the street, they are homeless. I know what it's like to be homeless on the streets of San Antonio. I have slept in the tunnels out here under the freeway. Oh, let me put my glasses on. Okay, with three minutes. Okay, but I have been sleeping out here over in Haven Hope. And I don't think it's fair for us to be thrown in with all of them over there and hope it's going to be all worked out. And the answer is she's saying all these generations are being here. I have been lived here for a while. I get to a point that when you get over there in that Haven Hope thing, you can't take anymore. Okay, let me go somewhere else. Let me get away from all this craziness. But there's a whole lot of people talking about building a big old huge football stadium. But anything that has to do with generating money for them, the rich people, they offer that. Okay, let's build a football stadium but we can't build a veteran shelter for the veterans in military city. Nobody's talking about that one. But I'm going to talk about it because I visited Boston, the New England Center for Homeless Veterans, a six-story shelter, veterans only in military city. And it's not fair to talk about a football stadium, a basketball arena when veterans one in four are homeless on the street. My name is Rhett Rosenquist-Smith, my candidate for Mayor of San Antonio and I wanted to mention my middle name my mother's maiden name, Rosenquist. Someone said you should honor both sides of your family and I certainly agree so I always want to do that. And I was raised in a single-parent home. My father was a Navy, United States Navy veteran but he left the home when I was about between six and eight years old and I didn't see him again for many, many years. So I was raised by my mother and my grandmother and I certainly believe that I benefited from that and that I learned a way of life in a small town where your next door neighbor is an extended family and so now that we're talking about prosumers and these issues I want to talk about health of the mind. I know that sometimes we talk about mental health but I know that other people talk about mind science and I thought that all the candidates here today showed some sensitivity about this issue but really the health of our mind is something that is an ongoing work for every person. All seven billion people on this planet and all 1.9 million people in San Antonio and Bear County. So I thought that Mr. Ponce had some really good suggestions just new creative ways to help expand the mind help people relate to one another. I certainly am sensitive to veterans issues in the United States Navy veteran myself and I applaud Mr. East for suggesting that we do not adequately fund veterans issues. So that will give you a clue as to what exactly we're facing here in San Antonio and in south Texas because I think you know the fact that Texas is way way way behind the curve so we've got many many issues here in south Texas it seems like we're always battling against north Texas to be legitimate or have our issues heard or even understood and tragically talking about mind science I would like to talk about history a little bit and the fact that they don't understand the history of south Texas and we in south Texas have been here I came here and moved here in 92 so I've been on a continually learning curve learning more about the history of south Texas so I want to talk about treating our veterans I formed an organization called Veterans for Education Reform it was really to talk about lobby our state board of education about history and social issues state board didn't really seem to people from north Texas just don't get south Texas but I also want to talk about the issues of not being part of the problem you've heard the expression if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem so I would just like to point out the sign over here on the side it says who will throw the west side residents out of their homes it's right over there on the orange and black there so you can see it really well and we don't want the city of San Antonio to be working at cross purposes to what we're really needing to accomplish here in pro-summers and you know building a better health and you know in some ways I would say that health of the mind is as important or maybe more important than the physical health of the body you know you can talk about heart disease and cancer and other things and those are certainly important on those but when we have a very violent community and I work with the peace initiative and Patricia Castillo and domestic violence and I've gone to the San Antonio Police Department for 20 hours of training so that now I'm trained with the FACT, the Family Assistance Crisis Team Training so that I can be a counselor in the police substations and I am very concerned I'm on the board, I mean not on the board I'm a member of the committees of the National the NAACP and I've worked with Lulac, I've worked with San Antonio's for peace building so I think dealing with violence in whatever form and it's out there we've talked about domestic violence and other kinds of violence but it's so crucial that the leaders be able to step up and we don't want to manage this city as a business unfortunately I think that I don't want to name names here but the past administrations and the way we have a strong city manager form of government that's more interested in our bottom line, more interested in that bond rating and so they're worried about can we show assets show what we've built instead of worrying about what about the mental health infrastructure of our communities so I I certainly think that I'll be focused on that and I'll be a hands-on mayor that's wanting to work, go out into the community and really engage every member of our community in these issues and I'm so thankful that you're here today and thank you for your time and I'll be working with you every chance I get, thank you again Mike? Please be so kind to and you were here when we first introduced but everybody has six minutes for views and then I'm going to be giving some questions that you all can answer great, thank you thank you for having me, excuse my tardiness I try to have lunch with my children on Fridays and it's my chance to have sort of one-on-one time with them and they let me know when I don't make it so I'm running late from bottom academy and their cafeteria but I'm glad to be here this is an important issue it's an issue that cuts across our city different populations of our city experience it in different ways but we're all in it together because we live in the same neighborhoods we our paths cross when we go shopping at HEB or at the mall, downtown wherever we go we're experiencing the challenges of lack of coverage for adequate mental health services and a lack of community awareness about mental health challenges in our society I know that one out of five US adults are living with a mental health condition for children that number is one out of ten in terms of a serious mental health challenge it's one out of twenty and so this is a pervasive concern and it expresses itself in different ways we see it in the homeless population that does not want to be pinned in at a haven for hope we see it even in our senior citizen population which is growing tremendously and they need a special type of care and oversight and a watchful eye different than other age groups we know that we can make a difference when we intervene early and so we need a more effective effort to screen and identify young children so that their parents and their loved ones can cope with them to take on this challenge live with it and manage it throughout their life together as a family unit here are my overarching policy goals on improving mental health services in San Antonio number one we need to focus on better community awareness and education because unlike other health challenges there's a stigma with mental health challenges unlike a child who breaks their arm and we know the protocol of what it takes to stabilize, secure and mend and help them cope if it's a severe break that they're going to have to live with the rest of their life we actually know how to do that pretty well but we don't know how to do the same with a child that has a mental health problem a depression, a condition that is going to be with them for their whole life and so that early intervention that community awareness so that all of our family members know that it's okay and that there are services that they can avail themselves to and community support groups that they can be a part of to help nurture their loved ones I want us to recognize that we have a large veteran population in our city and we're not doing them justice as we have a one stop center for people who want to build homes for buildings I believe we should have a one stop center for veterans because there are a lot of different services for veterans but it's a very fragmented system and if anybody needs help in going to one place to try to find access to federal state, county, city community college higher education services it's these men and women who have sacrificed themselves for us we should do that for them drug rehab this is a serious problem in our city and we see it in other social health indicators it's correlated to child abuse, to domestic violence to crime drug rehab is in shortage we do not have enough beds for those who make the courageous decision to try to shake the habit they don't have a place to turn to who will immediately try to take advantage of that moment and that's unfortunate because we end up paying for it in the end in all these other ways I mentioned senior citizens I have friends who are strong advocates of our senior citizen population I'm looking at one of them Betty Eckert I understand fully and on a personal level how our population is changing because it is aging my mom is a nurse for senior citizens the city because the state is failing to properly provide oversight in group homes and nursing homes the city needs to step up its role in collaborating with senior citizen advocates with the health care facilities big and small, license and unlicense to try to raise finally I want you to know we can do this we can do this this is in our reach I have no doubt about it we have the people we have the resources to make this a priority and advance the health care the mental health care agenda for our city, thank you perfect timing thank you for being here so we've asked everybody to speak for about six minutes and Janet is keeping the time for us then we will have questions and people are passing me questions and I'll be asking them thank you so much for joining us it's great to have you thank you good afternoon and hello to my fellow candidates thank you very much for being here at the wonderful cafe commerce I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you for a few minutes and look forward to and join the questions that you will have for all of us first of all, my apologies for arriving a little bit late I was at a funeral and with this rain by the way, if you haven't gone outside it's starting to really come down very hard please be safe on your way home so I apologize for being late I normally would not ever be late to such an important forum my name is Leticia Vanderpute and for 24 years I have had the blessings and the opportunity to represent this community in the Texas legislature first for nine years as member of the House of Representatives and the last really 14 as your state senator so I bring that 24 years of experience in bringing people together in solving some of the very very big challenges that we have proven results and effective leadership but I think what's important for this community and particularly for all of our prosumers is it for you to know a little bit of my background I see folks in here who have known me for an awful long time and other new folks and friends that I haven't had the opportunity to visit with but what you need to know is that I'm a pharmacist and have been for 35 years and I'm a mom six and a grandmother of six soon to be eight in August our son and his wife are expecting twins but what you need to know is the importance of my background my first job as a pharmacist was at the San Antonio State Hospital I was the pharmacist on the clinical wards of Arnold and Bowie and to think about what was happening with regard to mental health and services both at SASH and in the community we were doing the trials the medical trials for a new pharmaceutical that showed great promise called loxatane can you believe that because before that what was utilized really was so severe with the side effects the extra pyramidal symptoms were part of dyskinesia so our loved ones who suffered from a mental condition really had so much of the side effects with the current medications it was a time when San Antonio State Hospital still had electroshock therapy and so I was part of my training was there I loved it and there were there who showed me not just how to be a good pharmacist but how to be a healthcare professional I will be forever indebted to the nurses, the social workers the psychologists on staff that taught me about treating all of the healthcare team in a unit after that experience I was the outpatient pharmacist at the now what is the center for healthcare services so I was on the clinical team and for three years the area of mental health was my sole focus I was on the board as an advisory committee when I owned my own pharmacy for now what is the center for healthcare services and for so many years have been the lead sponsor of bills that reformed our mental health system and how we approached and I thank you for those folks who have helped me and who have always come to the capital with that vision and with that advocacy so let me tell you about mayor real quick I'm running for mayor because I think I can bring that type of experience of making sure that we look around the corner and see what's coming you need a city hall that's effective that's efficient and that treats people with respect no matter what their backgrounds no matter what their physical conditions and where they live we know that you need a city hall that's transparent but you need a mayor that's going to be able to bring people together to work with council members for the really big things and the really big things for us are that infrastructure of roads and drainage we'll have that opportunity in the 2017 bond package I really believe that we ought to have 75% of that dedicated to the streets and drainage second thing is public safety San Antonio's value that those first responders and then we really need to work on that workforce issue we're going to continue to grow the economy but we can't with our current workforce we need to make sure that our students when they're in the pipeline that they have that post high school something whether it's that certification program the licensure and associates degree so I want to make sure that our city does the things that the city is supposed to do well we have a perfect opportunity right now with our city manager looking at a search for a new police chief how we treat people in this community with mental illness and how our police does even though we've improved greatly we need to continue we need that working relationship with the county and with the state so that we can improve the number of dollars that come to our community for our mental health needs I want to be your mayor because I'll use every single relationship every single friendship every single knowledge base I can to improve the quality of life of the people who live in this community I look forward to your questions thank you so much on behalf of my colleagues and I I want to thank everybody for inviting us allowing us to speak our concerns and our plans for the city of San Antonio I'm Raymond Zavala and I want to be your mayor I bring 25 years of experience in leadership in financing where tough decisions and cuts had to be made what is lacking right now in the government of San Antonio is leadership it's very weak or nonexistent they're hiding things behind us behind our backs on Wednesday I attended a meeting where the mayor Ivy Taylor is the head of the committee and she has the right to select the other members of that committee that's absurd because you know what we deserve better I want to have a committee where if I'm elected the mayor I don't want to be the one who selects the people because that leaves a lot of questions in mind the good old boy system the buddy system where you pick those they're going to vote just like the ones in favor of what you want no I want somebody to stand up to me and say hey Mr. Mayor that's not right I don't agree with you okay let's talk it out but we can't do that right now the meeting I attended was part of that sign up there it was disastrous the city was ill prepared it was embarrassing and why because our illustrious mayor was out campaigning at the north side independent school district instead of being there with the people I don't like soul boaters I don't I don't like anybody that goes around soul boating I did this and I did that when you ask me a question be prepared to handle the truth because I will tell you the truth we talk about mental illness we have two entities the city and the county really that's called redundancy why can't we combine both of those and combine the funds and get better treatment for those that are affected don't you think so I mean would you want to pay two car payments for the same car I wouldn't common sense is what we're lacking at city council and matters not who or what you are as long as you care and you get the care that you need Haven for Hope I'm glad that they do have a part in this great city of San Antonio my wife and I have taken a pack finding trip up to Rapid City, South Dakota they have a homeless shelter there they have the general population they have the veterans they have the family sections as I walked into the building I was greeted by an armed guard I was not searched but I was greeted by the director who asked me how may I help you not fill out this form I said sir I'd like to take a trip a tour oh sure the floors were immaculate glass like all the beds were made up in a 45 degree manner as you do in the hospitals and the military people were working around the pantry, the dining room the laundry I asked them how much money they received from the city the guy blew me away when he said we received no funding from the city if you want to stay here you contribute four hours to community service Haven for Hope they have a cleaning staff why somebody is getting something off of that once again the buddy system I acknowledge to all of you I will leave no one behind my platform is this senior citizens the youth the disabled and the veterans in that order and they will not be left behind to mental illness my uncle was 84 years old was taking a walk from his house to the bakery he got stopped by SAPD he became he had an anxiety attack so what do they do? they knock him on the ground two of them I can't tell you how angered I was because my uncle was not mentally ill he was presumed that he was he had him locked up for two days my aunt went berserk not knowing where he was at I don't think that's fair and I'm glad that they have sensitivity training but we need more than that so I ask for your vote on May the 9th vote for ballot number 4 that's me and I don't make promises I make guarantees so please vote for ballot number 4 because our news media has not given the rest of us the equal opportunity that we so much deserve not only as veterans but as humans thank you thank you all for sharing with us and the way we're going to do this fortunately we have a little extra time so I'm going to ask the question and then any of the candidates who wish to answer this particular question we'll have a minute to answer it one more time maybe we can be a little more flexible than that but I want to make sure everybody who wants to speak has an opportunity to do so and we'll just go from my so from y'all's right to left so my first question is what solutions do you have for the challenges faced by people who experience strong emotions and have mental health issues and their interaction with the legal system many people many of us end up in jail many of us end up being taken down by police and hurt in that manner there's just that interaction between the legal system and mental health doesn't always work what solutions would you have to address that particular issue as the second part of that how would you address how many of us are in jail so would you like to address that well that's going to be a major issue with veterans because you have a lot of veterans that are getting discharged out of military with things like that and I think it's called a judge advocate general for veterans or something like that but we need to have actually on the staff of the DA someone who's actually trained and actually with the veterans administration to actually identify veterans when they first are arrested and that's going to eliminate a whole lot of problems on that end but what's the other part of the question a lot of us end up in jail what solutions do you have for that having somebody on the district attorney staff that is trying to deal with those issues with veterans and as soon as a veteran or somebody is arrested like that they can actually what is it a adjudication I think it's a term for there you go alright we were going to cross oh you were going to cross let me just say this briefly because I've got another thing to go to I served for 16 years on commissioners court and I founded the first reentry council to try to pull people out that were unnecessarily jamming our jail up when I first got elected they said build another jail and when I was in the legislature they told us we have got a problem we cannot build our way out of we had a prison space shortage and I realized at that point we've got to get underneath the underlying causes of why people are in jail and try to treat those and so although we have a 75% recidivism rate in our jail we do have a we have a veterans court we have other mental health we have a reentry court we have a lot of things to try to soften the blow of the difficulty that people find themselves in so this is a pretty progressive and I think really a national model can thank you very much I think it's so important for you to ask these questions and I respect Mr. Reeves talking about veterans Tommy's great experience you know I've tried to be part of that reentry program that Tommy talked about and that's a program where non-governmental organizations private organizations, charitable organizations are out there trying to help people so you know because what happens when you're in jail and then you know are you really going to get rehabilitated in jail I mean I think Mr. Ponce had a good point are we really educating these people in jail or are we just letting them kind of languish there so they can you know associate with other people who are languishing and really not that's a bad plan we need mentoring programs not only in our middle schools but in our jail so that these people actually have a good role model so basically we just need the money folks show me the money to help with these reactive mental situations and deal with the jail situation that's the way to do it, thank you if there's one thing that you find out about me as we go along this campaign trail is that I will be brutally honest with you you may not like the truth but it will be the truth and it will be what I think I do think we can collaborate together that's what I think that we need up front between the mental health members and the city I think we need to do that we need to establish something I do think that making it mandatory that all of our police enforcement officers get the training because that turned out to be a very positive move forward also I think that it's important that we realize that these police officers are just that, they're here to protect and to serve so how much further can you go beyond that I mean let's turn the situation around how would you react being a police officer so we have to be fair straight across the board with each other ma'am you're raising your hand she's got a question oh I'm sorry so I only had one minute right? I mentioned that I was a court administrator and that I was one of two people who implemented the juvenile justice courts and one of three people who implemented the domestic violence courts well I know we do have the mental health courts but I believe that the drug court and the veterans court kind of spawned off of the ideas that we started like 30 years ago I actually think that we should have a court that's available for people with mental issues or mental or just disabilities we should have a specialized court system put in for persons like that I believe that that can be done without funding I believe all we need to do is go to meet with the county commissioners or persons in the city and I believe something like that can be set up automatically without securing funding and then later on they could actually fund a court that we'd be specialized for persons of special needs maybe they could be seen in three days or they're at the jail the same day that they enter so that we're aware of their situation thank you we as taxons, we as San Antonians and Americans should be ashamed that our number one mental health providers are jails and prisons and it's that pipeline as a member of the legislature I'm not an attorney you know I'm a pharmacist but I've been the author of most of the specialty courts builds including working with judge John Specia at the time in the 1990s to create the alternatives to incarceration program which began that child abuse and neglect docket the drug court and also I was the author of the veterans courts number one we need to maximize that funding we need that sensitivity but we also have to have the ability for the city the county our school districts to work together full implementation of bear cares and what that is is to make sure that when our parents and our students who are identified with having some trouble in the school system that rather than start this criminal justice pathway that we realize that it is really a health condition and make sure that we work together you got to maximize the funding and as mayor I know that I would work with city council our county leaders our state leaders number one to maximize the mental health funding that comes to our community and to work more efficiently for the benefit of the families not for the convenience of the system thank you so your question was about how we can change the relationship between our police and our citizens that are residents that are living with mental health challenges and how to address how many in deputy hurt or in jail or in jail in the process services or other there are three things that I think we should act on number one we should improve the training of our police officers to be able to detect and properly handle residents who are suffering from mental health condition we need them to be able to discern whether somebody is intentionally acting out in a criminal manner or they're just coping with a condition that they have that also needs to be built into their evaluation process and we need to track that as a city and have a report come to sit the mayor and the council so that we know if we are exacerbating the problem or not I think we should do more with the alternatives to incarceration part of that means having healthcare services that are available and accessible to folks who are seeking in the need of care the biggest thing that we can do in Texas is to advance Medicaid expansion which will include services for those in need of mental health services and finally we are rolling out how we intervene early with truance this is an opportunity to identify children at the youngest ages who are suffering from mental health conditions thank you okay mental health and the police department those are two different entities one I think it's established on its own through the city communities I'm really not sure how that works right now we have Haven for Hope I don't know if a lot of you all know about Haven for Hope but the largest homeless shelter in the state of Texas they have a lot of homeless people there and people with disabilities that the city center for healthcare services is taking care of you have PCY Courtyard and that is supposed to be for people with mental issues or a stop before they're transitioned to the Haven for Hope member side the police department and securities need to really be a little bit more lenient and the only reason is because of the services that both sides deal with I know there are certain areas that they have to try and pinpoint to figure out to see if they're still or if they are or if they've committed a crime but in that area they're safe they have tons of surveillance cameras well my idea is this only because I've experienced with my uncle and I believe that all law enforcement personnel should be trained into identifying someone with a mental illness issue at that moment that is totally different from an act of crime if it is a mental issue at the moment then they would take that individual to the station where he would be evaluated by a certified doctor and then put into a program what does it cost nothing because the doctors already exist there how much time would it take how much time would it take almost nothing because it's going to be processed anyway and that their family would be notified immediately and let them know where he's at or where she is at and for me accountability is number one on that list stress is the worst thing that could happen to a person because it leads to anxiety and it leads to mental issues and we need to stop that at the beginning thank you thank you for your answers so another issue that affects many of the citizens of San Antonio and especially those of us who deal with mental health issues is housing and a lack of affordable housing and homelessness and how that is addressed and I would ask you to address how you see maybe a comprehensive program are those things working together yes we have Haven for Hope in the prospects courtyard it was built for 500 people the first night they had 700 one of the yes it's a great program and people are still being raped in the courtyard people are still being robbed in the courtyard and people are still being assaulted in the courtyard so we still have an issue that needs to be addressed so my question is this is a group of questions around affordable housing and dealing with in the absence of that the homelessness challenges that we still face so oh I'm sorry I get my go ahead wait you got to speak on the we were going to go we're all going in order am I next he is we started over here we're going this way okay no problem you want to go to different time let's do two minutes yeah this is the long question so two minutes each and then if we need more time please let me know that we'll address that and we'll still just go in order if it's something that you choose not to speak to that's fine I don't want everybody to feel compelled to do so but I want everybody to have a chance it's modeled after what they have up in New England the New England Center for a homeless veteran but I came up with acronym veterans emancipated from homelessness assisted by Texans those two large buildings right across the street from the Greyhound and this problem about women being raped you separate the men away from the women in their own shelters after you get the veterans out of that situation that shelter where it's constructed right now is in one of the worst locations in San Antonio with trains blaring all night rocking you up and back and forth like this you are constantly on alert it was never supposed to be inhabited by humans and especially ones with mental illnesses it was built on a piece of land that the city could not sell to anybody so anybody want to rave about having a go and stay there tonight okay I don't want this to count against my time but can you succinctly restate that question so that we're all on the same page so dealing one with affordable housing how do we have housing available for people who are on fixed income receiving SSI and given the shortitude that many people do end up homeless and how do we deal with the homeless issue we still face good okay I think those are certainly related back again to the issue of money that if you have housing out there but nobody can afford it and for some people are just not going to be able to function and they end up on the streets so we need to have a better way to deal with that and probably here in south Texas is unique because we are an international city a frontier city in some ways and I just you know I think of our seniors I think of our children I think of the fact that you know we're just always trying to play catch up and I think leticia van depuit mentioned some legislation that she introduced one was and one was using restraints and isolation on children I don't know if you sponsored both those bills but there were certainly long overdue and so the fact is we need to go back and correct those problems and we have a lot of senior issues in our city I would like to make our city a greatest generation city and really focus on senior issues but you know I hope that from all these candidates and then later from all our taxpayers we're going to actually come up with a funding to do this thank you very much first I want to say that I am against handouts and I believe the people that are in the situation where they're having a financial crisis that we should help them I'm all for that but along with that I do believe that we need to do for people that are receiving these benefits because I have heard of families that are actually getting all of these benefits and then they're accepting and selling drugs on the side and they're bragging about it out in public to their friends so that's got to go now with regard to the homeless I have done extensive research on this this is what they're doing across our nation in all the big cities they are providing homeless individuals with housing and also with the social worker that will help them reintegrate themselves back into society why? because it's actually costing the cities and the county and the states less to give them a house with a social worker than what it is to leave them out on the streets why? because number one emergency room doctors the cost of a police officer and all that it's accompanied with that winds up being much more costly than what it is to give them a home and keeping them healthy and teaching them how to reintegrate back into society and so you can go on the internet on my website CynthiaBremperMayer.com and look up Homeless and I talk about it at length and what they've done and also provide link speed to substantiate exactly what I'm saying thank you and I'm going to ask you to repeat the question because I didn't totally understand okay so many of the people who've been identified as having mental health issues live on fixed incomes so affordable housing is an issue when there's not sufficient we live on the streets we end up at prospect courtyard so what do you propose to do about having more affordable housing and in absence of that improving services for people who are homeless or addressing the homelessness issue well I actually think there is affordable housing now but the situation with the person if they're not stable enough to actually keep a home because you have like programs like with Wells Fargo who's willing to give $15,000 down to like for a person to get into their home they just have to qualify and I don't know what the qualifications are but I think that we need to be able to as the remove the city ordinance for one thing that says something like only family members can live under that household and so I believe that we need to have maybe like a person that would actually be like a sponsor or a sitter and live with that person and help them I guess change their life empower their life and improve their life and get stabilized and maybe so that that person can actually begin to have a home and know how to take care of it because I feel like a person that's not mentally stable would not be able to do that on their own and for the homeless situation I think that I think that we need to try to I guess come together as a community and help people with mental issues stabilize their lives like I said with community programs like you know gardening, the community gardens or art therapy where they actually can begin to get mentally healthy but I believe that we also need to be very careful with our senior citizens because I feel that throughout the city where we have closed many of the city centers for seniors where they would go have lunch and visit a lot of that I believe help seniors from getting depressed or having a mental situation because they were actually not going there for that food because I've eaten that food and to me I wouldn't serve anybody that food and so they actually would go there for friendship and you know coffee with their neighbor that they wouldn't see so things like that need to be put back together somehow rather than having it in a location where they can't get to. Thank you. Thank you very much that's a very important issue and it's an issue that's important for San Antonians it's made more difficult with families who know that they have a loved one with a mental condition unless you've experienced it firsthand when a loved one has no realization of who they are and there's no place to turn to in the family in crisis it's a moment of terror but then when the prosumer is able to regain their health sometimes the burden of understanding then what they have put their family through and they've put themselves at risk and others sometimes that feeling of guilt stands in the way of that full recovery it is so difficult for families to make sure that they have a safe place for their loved one but this is a lot of San Antonians so how do we solve that well first of all the city of San Antonio has a policy that doesn't coincide with the state of Texas to maximize those housing credits to build more affordable housing I'll give you the example the state of Texas went through a great shift in that they decided that the priority should be and they're not going to give the tax credits to communities who continue to put only affordable housing in those areas of the community that are blighted the state has said that we're going to put affordable housing in all parts of the community that all neighborhoods need to share that type of mix if not you have the disparities the city of San Antonio has the opposite policy well meaning but they want to take care of those areas first that are blighted so unless we want to maximize those funding dollars the first thing I do as mayor is to make sure that our policies coincide so that we can draw down both the federal tax dollars that all of us have paid and our citizens have paid those IRS taxes and the state credits we need to continually work on the affordable options whether they're multi-family units whether that's home ownership particularly for those who have family matter with mental health issues I can tell you having family members who are adults who are well and they get on their own and they get a job only to have their condition relapsed this is much like the understanding and other folks in the community think well they had they had it together what happened well I'm sorry mental illnesses are just like high blood pressure or diabetes it's going to continue that's how you manage and as a community we have not managed our entire population and given the supports needed for those families as mayor I would make sure that our city departments not just the police department but all of our city employees understand and have that sensitivity of when you're working with someone who may have a mental health issue a lot of times we want them to first of all make sure that they're safe that they're not at risk to their own health and to others health and with that people need to be treated with respect housing is an issue that is being expressed in different ways across the city we know there's a task force that the prior mayor Julian Castro initiated current mayor is leading today it's bringing up a number of concerns on how to keep housing affordable in San Antonio how to grow our neighborhoods so that they are of mixed income and and that folks who are longtime residents aren't being pushed out mental health is also a housing issue that should be at the table we are moving forward as a city towards a housing policy we need one sooner than later when elected I will make it a priority to complete this look at what are all of our housing needs and make sure that advocates representing the mental health community are at the table in shaping that plan there is discussion about the 2017 bond issue having some funds out of that capital initiative be set aside for housing mental health concerns should also be addressed in that effort Leticia talked about the lack of synchronization between the city's affordable housing policies and the state's policies particularly on the federal tax credits there is also a lack of synchronization and timing not just are the goals not aligned but the schedule of when certain reports are due at the city are not lining up on the state's timeline of when they need applications submitted and turned in it sounds simple it's frustrating I've sat with a number of affordable housing developers in the nonprofit sector who are pulling out their hair knowing that they are missing deadlines at the state level because we do not have a city government who is actively partnering with them to help leverage those federal dollars we need to change that and as mayor I'll pay attention and make this a priority thank you income people that are middle class and they're low class those are normally the ones that are people that are going through lawsuits or the ones that end up homeless you have a person with a $24,000 income and then you have another person that's living in their own home paying what or making maybe $15,000 a year so you have those two different types of people that are trying to make men's need or everything need to run their family or their household so once that middle class person or the poor person goes to a certain point where they can't pay for their bills anymore they can't buy food for their children they have to go into public assistance so that once they receive those those assistants they follow rules and regulations so when they start following them rules or they break those rules they in turn are sanctioned or whatever so that means that they have to sell all their stuff move into a homeless shelter and the first step would be for families it would be having for hope the member side and for singles it would be prospect courtyard building houses for the homeless isn't going to be hard you know our budget we have a full $1 billion that they're going to be able to use whoever the next mayor is going to be and them houses are going to be able to be constructed at 200 houses per month affordable housing it's a fantasy ladies and gentlemen you don't believe me look at the law of some broadway look at the building nice apartment buildings that they built at the intersection of south frio and wadalupe street they were supposed to be affordable housing some for the seniors really I bet you I can count on both my hands how many of those apartments are for seniors and why it's all about the good old American dollar and the profit that these investors can make another one that's coming about is the emission road soon to be a fantastic place to live they displaced all these families there and who voted for that? CD consul to rezone it they said that they sent out advisement as to how the people wanted that place to be redeveloped really it didn't happen and that's okay there will be some changes we need to establish a program where everyone regardless as to where whether your status is 50,000 a year or less or even more we need to integrate and establish where all types of can live next to each other and accept each other as good Christian folks should do unfortunately our city council hasn't done that as far as Haven for Hope and the homeless I'd like for each and every one of you to ask for an itemized detail financial report from them I bet you don't get it how do I know? because I've been asking for once in 2003 and I still haven't got the itemized one so please if we want to do something let's do the right thing do it for me because I do it for you we have a variety of questions addressing financing and money and so I'm going to all together and then if you can address just really how do we fund mental health services through the city is the city responsible for funding mental health services for its citizens how does that I know a lot of it comes from the state county but what is the responsibility of the city for the citizens on that behalf and there's also a lot of interest around the structure of the management of the city whether we would still have a city manager if that is a the way that we have a strong mayor and city manager and how that would affect mental health services are also some of the questions we're getting so it's it's a little complicated but basically does the city have a responsibility to help funding services and in managing all of it is the structure that exists today still the one that you would continue let's go ahead and give two minutes as well that's a really long question I have a really long list of questions how do we fund it should we? I mean it's the city responsible for doing it let's meet two minutes okay my name again is Pogo Michela Eleanoris I am from Monroe, Louisiana and there was a guy that I met down in Florida named Harry Shaw he's invented an engine called a cyclone engine that will replace all internal combustion engines with an external combustion engine and we want to recruit this guy here to build those engines here the first thing is creating jobs to create everything else you don't do it from the bottom up you gotta bring in the jobs first you gotta bring in the industries and the reason I chose to come and live in this city because the thing is once we start building those engines here in this city we start converting the land clean we start converting the VIA buses we start converting all the city vehicles and then the rest of the country has to follow us you don't lag in technology like this you have to lead everybody else is talking about program I'm talking about prosperity building engines here to revitalize the whole planet thank you obviously gets right to the part of our issue here I think private funding is out there we can direct our city manager and others to actually do a search for private funding we've talked about the state of Texas and we have former representative and former senator here that have been in those halls to deal with that kind of funding I would like to believe there are some sympathetic ears in the legislature that are going to deal with this and I think that you all and all our candidates here are going to want to do that but we can certainly direct our city manager and others to look for private funding sources try to find a few dollars more to provide for training to provide for other services and I feel in a nation that is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world in a state that has the highest outcome production of gas and oil in the United States that there's a lot of money so maybe we're going to create a spark here with you and I talking to our friends and neighbors saying we're the richest nation on the planet and yet we are one of the most violent this is one of the most violent states when we talk about violence in our bear county it's atrocious child abuse all the other issues the money's there and yet somehow or another what's wrong do we all have mental issues here that we just cannot get over that hump of communicating with our friends and neighbors about this thank you very much I failed to mention this but I know that you've noticed because this is your field but 30% of Americans are faced with mental health issues that's a huge percentage furthermore 20% of children also deal with mental health issues my proposal has been from the very beginning to redo the budget there's a lot of corruption and misuse of tax dollars and we can take those dollars that have been misused and reappropriate them to the areas that they need to be focused on insofar as those that are homeless and have mental health issues or just even the average American citizen that has mental health issues and they're impacted by whatever circumstances that face them and they're arrested by the police and they're brought to you I think that we can take as I said earlier a collaboration of all of you medical health professionals and we can work together to come up with a better solution so that we can appropriate these dollars to form a better system within our own city government everyone pays taxes and since there's a huge percentage of Americans that face mental health then we need to address this issue because it's huge and I believe that between what you're doing here with the Center for Health Care Services that's a good role model but I think it can be improved upon we just have to find out what that solution is and I would favor taking monies out of the budget and appropriate it towards mental health thank you I know mental health issues can happen from one minute to the next I was on the committee to create the DWI Task Force here in Beard County about 30 years ago and I know somebody who is drinking and all of a sudden they get angry and in jealousy, you know, kill somebody or they're in a traumatic accident where somebody in their family dies so I think that at any time anybody can begin to have a mental health issue but I do believe that the city and the county should come together and get some funding for San Antonio for mental health issues but I believe that actually like I mentioned before I believe this community can get started without funding if trying to put together an awareness program through the city and they should have money for that and at getting these people involved in the community with like the gardens and art therapy and to me the most important thing should be that something together when a person gets arrested that that same day that they have access to somebody who is interviewing them whether it's the person who's interviewing them for an attorney or the person who's taking care of them as they like interview to go into the jail those people should be trained to be able to assess the possible situation of a person that if they have mental health issues so that within a couple of days or a day that they are actually seen by a court to be able to be assessed does this person really need to stay in jail or can we go ahead and release him on his own personal reconnaissance or to a family member to me that would be the most important issue that we should take care of first is persons that get incarcerated just because of a mental issue that was created thank you I believe the cracks of the question and what role is appropriate for the city of San Antonio well we know that the state through the statutes is absolutely the entity that is in charge of indigent care that decision was made by the legislature in the 80s hence the agents of the state are the county the counties by the hospital districts by the property taxes we pay are actually the ones responsible for indigent care and in that indigent care that's where you've seen the center for health care services how that works our mental health system but it's the state first of all we know that we have made great strides I'm thankful for those of you who fought with me and added on to my bill before it was part of the affordable care act to have mental health parity with our insurance products here in the state of Texas we couldn't have that for those what we call orisa plans those plans for employers have their own retirement systems but thank goodness that we've been able to at least have some part of that mental health parity but the city can play a great role and this is one area that no one has talked about in those who have dual diagnosis because there's an interface of those with addiction whether by alcohol or drugs usually we'll have that interface at the criminal justice side or as a component of what happens on our streets that homelessness we need to make sure that we continue that sort of funding which is but I'm so thankful that I was able to secure the 6 million dollars that the state put in to the detox center that is on the side campus because what has happened is you know those loved ones and those San Antonians who have that dual diagnosis they first have to get a safe place to dry out and get clean there's where we play a role because of the dual diagnosis the mental health is basically that funding from the state but we can play a critical role in those and sometimes they get shut out of other programs because of their dual diagnosis on addiction and diagnosed on the DSM with some of those critical illnesses I think that there is an ability for the city to be a partner with the county with the state to maximize and it's probably going to be that braided funding that we see and models that are effective across the country thank you yes the city does have a role to play in funding services to care for residents who have mental health challenges concerns will it be the leading role no, as Leticia described the county really is the local entity who's responsible for managing local health care services they oversee the hospital district they authorize whether their property tax rate increases or not but the city still has a role to play public safety is within the city's core set of services in fact if you go across the board parks, libraries everything that the city does has a role to play in providing and caring for somebody that likely has a mental health challenge and so if we want to do more I think about libraries right now we have a challenge with the central library Travis Park was reprogrammed and a lot of residents a lot of homeless people who are hanging out around Travis Park are now occupying space in the central library and it's changed the atmosphere of the central library we need to help those who want to seek help who want to find a bed to rehab in who want to stabilize their lives and climb to self-sufficiency we need to help them because when we do the other responsibilities in city government are more effectively delivered so if we actually can move the needle on reducing the homeless population on reducing the population with drug problems we advance the other clearly core missions and responsibilities of city government from public safety to libraries to parks mental health the budget and being able to obtain dollars from the city for like health care services I'm really not sure if the city of San Antonio is well you know I'm pretty sure they are funding because they're a partner or something like that but right now I'm gonna say that I would not fund for anything else if they're given dollars right now to these institutions I would probably stay in that area but I know that they're already getting services from the state of Texas so like the city of San Antonio health department they receive their funding from the state they should be receiving the funding from our city revenue so that's supposed to be totally out they're supposed to get the monies directly from the state and I'm gonna try and keep that same process if I'm elected the next mayor for other agencies that are receiving monies from the state of Texas not to receive money from the city and that's only because that's gonna take away from the people and we're trying to get jobs in order job security and if we're gonna have that job security we all have to collaborate together to make sure that we meet that goal well as some of you already know Haven for Hope received 7.5 million dollars a year in their budget city gave 2.5 million that's matched by the state and then by the federal government what are they doing with that money I for one believe in streamlining and holding people accountable for example I believe that the city council corporate welfare system should stop to date this year they received 2.5 million under my plan this year they received 2.5 million the next year they received half of that half of that until they're cut off self sufficient just like the one up there in Rapid City, South Dakota we need to do that here we have a moral obligation not only as residents or citizens but as human beings to treat or seek treatment for those with mental issues we fail not only as Christians but we fail as people if we don't do something to stop this city council corporate welfare system I for one believe that it can be done you know you can't just be handing out money forever to the same people when is an animal an animal's life worth more than a human life the answer is never ACS received 2.5 million why where is the accountability of that money we need to stop them and we need to stop them now this is a goal line defense ladies and gentlemen and we need to get the ball back on our court, the people's court thank you so we're going to have one more question that everybody can answer for 2 minutes and then each of you will have an opportunity for a quick wrap up to say a few words and unless there's any objections I have been asked if Mike could give his first because you have something else that you need to be so unless there's an objection from the battle we'll let you do that first let me ask the question the next question I hope you have the answer to this one I absolutely did so many of us in this room know that recovery is possible yes you know we're talking about being able to live our lives and live our dreams and being gainfully employed and pay taxes and getting their take something and one of the things we found that it takes is peer support awareness and training and just if I may indulge at one point prosumers actually did a training for the central library on how to approach people and treat them with respect and ensure that they get where they need to be and if there's nowhere else with the public library then let's look at why there's nowhere else with the public library but we actually were asked to do that and it was very well received and it altered the way people were approached at least for a period of time when they came in off the streets to the public library so there are other things that can be done but the question is we know that we have a crisis in the area of services for people who are in crisis or who don't have any other place to go maybe dealing with some strong emotions and the question is as mayor would you be willing to have our voice represented at every place where there is an advisory committee and especially those pretending to the services we use and two would you be willing to fund a pilot crisis peer respite run by people who've been there and now they've got response so I'll let you answer well this gets at the issue I described earlier on of course the city has a role in mental health services because if you look at the array of services that we provide we provide them to the general public there is a certain percent of our residents who are living with mental health challenges and so absolutely yes I will support funding for a respite center answer to your last question and I will also support the inclusion of advocates like prosumers to be at the table in every advisory board or group that informs how we deliver the array of basic services the city provides from libraries to swimming facilities to our parks across the board I won't be here for the closing I just want to say thank you for organizing this this is a real exchange your questions really help shape the agenda and the thinking of the candidates running for the right time to do this before we get elected so it's very smart and I'm very happy to be here let me tell you I'm running for mayor of san Antonio in pursuit of really a single heartfelt goal and that is to make our city a city of opportunity for all of us not some of us and that means our fellow residents who are living with mental health challenges thank you there's two places most politicians won't go they won't go out there and talk to some of those homeless people at that computers or go over to the TWC and see all those people are unemployed because when the first thing that starts to break you down mentally is once you lose your job no one up here but me has talked about creating jobs to create opportunities to create all this other stuff we need everybody's talking about shuffle some money over here shuffle some money over here and they're going to do nothing when they get into office so if you don't have any ideas don't have to recruit businesses to come here and bring jobs and opportunities none of this other stuff they're talking about is ever going to happen thank you very much again you've done a fantastic job as my very old noted you know to get thoughtful questions before the public to get this community dialogue started and congratulations on all the things that you've already accomplished that you mentioned as far as the crisis the mental health on every single committee every service the city is involved in every office I have no objection to that I would support that I don't know you know if our strong city manager is going to be amenable to that but you know maybe we can find a manager that's more amenable to that kind of idea so as far as the the pilot crisis peer respite center wonderful idea and here's my thinking on this I don't know if some of you know that I'm a libertarian so I'm different from some of these other candidates up here you know I don't want to get into a knock down drag out here with other political parties but as a libertarian we kind of think outside the box so here's a suggestion why don't we start a petition right now I know it's a little bit late to get it on the ballot this time for the city charter because that's an excellent way to do things and then once you get that petition up and they have to consider it on the next city charter whenever they can unfortunately we can only do that every two years and they've kind of loaded up this and we've missed a deadline on getting something a petition on the city charter this time but let's start right now everybody in this room I do a lot of block walking I promise you I'll collect more signatures on that petition then all the other candidates up here will just take a challenge and it'll be on the next time and you know and for the night we succeed in getting it on as a city charter or not we can at least bring more public awareness to what we want to do I'd like to ask the audience how many of you are familiar with the Texas JC's ever heard of them? I'm a former Texas JC and one of their lines in their creeds is service to humanity is the best work of life if that exemplifies me it does 100% it exemplifies who I am as a person and that's how I've led my life is being of service and I can tell by looking at each one of you, you love people too otherwise you wouldn't be in the field that you're in and I would support having what was the term that you used the crisis period crisis I would support that and I think that's a great idea we all live in this community we all have to work together we all have to take care of each other and I think us getting together informing something that would be of service to those in need I think that's important we need to address those issues and I believe that we could start I saw you collaborate with Cheryl Scully I think we could cut her salary in half and find somebody else and take those funds and use it towards the community and if she's not satisfied with that get someone else so anyway close the statement and I'll wait for that to later thank you I agree with Cynthia we could take Cheryl Scully's salary and start that crisis center and that would work can I ask y'all also something are y'all familiar with the CRIT has anybody heard of the CRIT? I know the that's the Ackerman but I always forget what it stands for but San Antonio across from Morgan's Wonderland has what's been built as the CRIT and that organization is for children with special needs I believe that San Antonio should become because of those two organizations being across from each other they are not funded by city or state I believe that because of those two organizations here Morgan's Wonderland and the CRIT that San Antonio should be like a national center for persons with special needs and awareness I believe that as the city grows we need to grow our medical arena to help with jobs and the main part of that would be for jobs for persons with special needs psychologists doctors in that area people are moving to San Antonio because of those two organizations being here there's 20 other CRITs built throughout the Latin American countries this is the first one that's been built in the United States and I guess it was purposely built across from Morgan's Wonderland in the Latin American countries they do a fundraiser for this CRIT and they raise $15 million a year by phone and by having Spanish actors asking for money and so this last year in December and this is the second year they do it they've raised this year $15 million to help support that organization and I think that we should help support it but of course we need to go ahead and fund a crisis center it shouldn't be with city monies alone I think we should look for donations from through big businesses to help support that thank you we know that the data shows us that peer-to-peer involvement and networks work it works when you're a wounded warrior it works when you've lost a child to a disease it works in all areas of health and crisis because families will talk to families prosumers to prosumers but also the community needs to engage in this discussion before we really commit to a peer-to-peer network and crisis center I know that it would be important but what I don't want us to see and what happens many times is that you get a champion and it becomes very very important and it gets funded one cycle of the council people get excited they get trained and then there's no sustainability plan and what happens is the families and the people who are in this peer-to-peer network end up depending and getting that and then the funding dries up so in that discussion I would have to be certain because I don't want to set our families up yet for another fall that we have something that would be sustainable but I know what can be sustainable I am a real believer in First Aid maybe it's because I'm a pharmacist and I've worked in an emergency room on the Code Blue Team and I know how important it is for the general population to understand things like First Aid and CPR no mention has been made and I would really like to see the discussion on Mental Health First Aid a community program that is dedicated to informing and training the general population about how to recognize the signs the symptoms of those with mental illness it's been very effective in other counties it's been shown to really increase that just think about how many people have saved lives because they know CPR I would be really very excited if through prosumers and through us that we look at establishing San Antonio as one of the premier cities in mental health First Aid thank you very much a new institution to pay dollars to buy the city I would not do that what I would do though is I would contribute dollars to the organization it's only because I would have or the next mayor would have other things that they would have to do and by giving a contribution and stopping all new accounts from coming in it would bring a lot more money to our city of San Antonio to be able to raise money for a certain establishment or an establishment that y'all have I don't know what type of permits y'all have but they have different types of permits that y'all can utilize there's a certificate that they give you that allows you to go out and obtain contributions from the city that yeah and that's really not expensive I think it's a 100 I forgot what it's called but they do have certificates that y'all can obtain to start going out into the public and receiving dollars for that institution my apologies I'm going to have to leave and I'll forego my statement just thank you very much for this opportunity thank you I would definitely fund the program I'd go two steps further whether they have one centralized building there's a lot of empty buildings out here in the city of San Antonio I would locate one in every sector of the city so that those people who need the help can get there the problem is transportation if you locate it in one central location people are going to have trouble getting to it I don't believe in having a centralized location we need to spread the workforce and the help throughout the city as far as funding it you heard me say it before accountability and eliminate city council corporate welfare same people same groups are always getting the money let's cut them off become self-sufficient my wife runs that budget in my house and I can tell you this is it a want or is it a need if it's a want I'm not getting it but if it's a need I'll get it so why can't the city council operate under that rule and sooner or later all those up there are going to become senior citizens and yes I too will some day have a mental issue and I'm going to need the help and I hope that it's there for me as I am for it now and all I ask is this with me you get the truth you will not get any rhetoric I don't like rhetoric rhetoric tends to become complacent with people I don't want to be mayor I don't want to be governor I don't want to be vice president I want to be your mayor stay at home mayor and do what's right for the people do it for me because I do it for you thank you so if each of you would like we can have now each of you have two minutes to wrap up either you can share about more mental health issues or if you would like to just share what your platform in general is you're welcome to do that as well and then we'll just go two minutes my name is Kogel Mitchell Allen I was born in Monroe, Louisiana I used to be a substitute teacher in Arlington, Texas and one thing I would do I would have this little system where I wouldn't talk to the kids and I would write on the board number one, no talking number two, stay in your seats number three, keep working start working and I would have a clipboard to go around and I would have a clipboard that day I feel like killing myself and I say whoa, hold up it's time to just rewind I can't do nothing else right here I had to sit down on it and then as I'm walking around I look at her arm lolly slash marks on her arm as a substitute teacher don't you think a person should tell you well she's trying to kill herself like three times because as a substitute teacher I'm trying to get math inside of your head and not deal with suicide or tendencies when you have teachers that are dealing with issues like that and you have the police dealing with issues like that and the issue that I was dealing with on the bus about the woman walking around trying to get run over that's a whole lot of issues going on in our country and as you said before the money is getting short for everything you can't keep on saying I'm going to move this money over here move this money over here you got to grow the pot to have money through anything okay one minute I I am trying to convey to you my strong feelings about violence and dealing with violence throughout our community and I mentioned the fact that I'm a libertarian so what does that mean to you what does that mean for our local politics and what does that mean globally because as you know some of you know that it's very difficult for third parties like libertarian party, green party in other words we have a two party system in the United States the republican party and the democratic party some would say here in San Antonio we only have a one party system that oftentimes like a candidate like Nelson Wolf for instance who I just finished a campaign against this past November running for county judge that he was able to get significant republican votes to hold on to his seat for bear county judge so the point is if we want to do something different if we want to change the world if we want to reach out there I would like to do that so I would like to sign up for what you are doing and I would like to really try to do something you know this anthropologist once said Margaret Mead what does it take to change the world or if you get together a few people to change the world indeed really that's the only way the world has ever changed in other words it starts with a little idea a few people get together and then it builds and builds and builds so because San Antonio is so crucial to Texas really and to the United States history I think y'all have to be aware of the unique role that San Antonio plays San Antonio was here before there was a Texas before there was a United States of America so we have a unique place to play in world history in reaching out and building that global network of non-violence and you know sound health of the mind thank you just like Abraham Lincoln said government should be of the people by the people and for the people and I firmly believe that and I stand on that if you want a fair and equitable voice that's going to echo what you want and how you want to be governed I am that person I am a fair person I am an honest person I am a God fearing woman I am a woman of my word I believe so confidently and so strongly in my abilities to represent you that I stand before you today and tell you that if you decide to elect me as your next mayor and I do not have things going the way you want it to go in the direction that you said you wanted to go I want you to fire me that is what I believe and I believe anyone that goes into politics should have the courage of their convictions to stand here before you today and tell you that I have that conviction I ask for your support I ask for your vote and I ask that you seriously consider me as your next mayor please go to my website and see what my ideas are straight across the board CynthiaBremforMayor.com Thank you My heart is in this community like I mentioned earlier that I've been doing over like 40 years of community service and it all started back in California as a child when my dad I'm actually a product of my parents my dad would take me to the field with Caesar Chavez to help support the women that were working in the fields and they were being sprayed on by planes with pesticides and they were being told that it was water to cool them down well those poor people didn't know any better and one of my classmates was a young man I'm not sure how old I was but about nine he had no arms but he was the best swimmer in the school he would always win the competitions and I never understood how he could meet those challenges well people with special needs can meet challenges if we help them and I believe that here in this city like I said we should become a national center for persons with special needs to give an awareness throughout the country it doesn't just have to be here in San Antonio and me with my experiences me she told me one 30 seconds I'll leave me with my experiences as a court administrator putting together the juvenile justice courts the domestic violence courts working in the county we can actually start all of those things now without funding and look for funding whether it's through the private sector or in the community and I would welcome if I'm mayor that y'all are right there with me helping to put together situations or because I tell my friend Debbie that's here with me today that I want to put together commissions throughout the city so that the voters can help decide for me to get up there and be the mayor I want to be the person that's helping y'all make decisions I don't want to be there to make the decision I don't think that's right we don't need a mayor we already have Scali she does that we need a mayor that's going to work with the people with the voter not just with people with money so together I would like to build this city into a national awareness center for persons with special needs thank you so much my name is Gerard Fonsi my name is Sintika Vossels and I'm a candidate for mayor there's a lot of different things that our city is going to need and I know that mental health is an important issue only because it deals with crime and to be able to bring our city's crime to a minimum we have to make sure that the people in our city San Antonio are taken care of mentally, physically and physically I mean the city has to have a home um the budget again I'm going to go ahead and stress that $1 billion is what we have available in the budget to work with we've already paid the well the police officers and the firemen will have already gotten their money for the year however they do that I really don't know how they appropriate their dollars or when they receive them all that other money it's for the city so if you are going to have some type of cause and bring it whether I'm the mayor or somebody else is the mayor they will review it and they will take a look and decide whether if it's a good, decide whether it's good or not my name is Sintika Vossels thank you well as you all know I'm Raymond Zavala and I've been an advocate for the seniors for the youth the disabled and the veterans I can guarantee you right now that no one remember I said I don't make promises I can guarantee you this that no one on the city council has read the entire budget for this year if you believe that they did ask them if there are speed readers or technical writers because I guarantee you about the budget let me get back with you I don't remember that one for me it should be mandatory that you read that budget and then you sign off on it acknowledging that you did read it and you did understand it and not just pencil whip it I for one believe in this we have a very weak city council I'm not the pipe piper I will never be the pipe piper for you I will be a leader but I want those that are with me to wholeheartedly agree that it's a good ordinance one that will be acceptable to the citizens of San Antonio that everything we do it's not about the business community it's about the people one candidate up here was endorsed back in June by the business community really? didn't even give us a chance why? I am not a sell out so I say again I am not a sell out no one there's four things that are not for sale in my life the love of God the love of my wife, my family my honor and my vote I am not for sale ladies and gentlemen I stand tall and even though maybe 63 years old I've had a lot of experience and I have common sense and more than that I'm willing to work for you because it's the right thing to do thank you so I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your time your willingness to serve I know that there has to be some level of passion for you to put yourselves through what it takes to run for office on behalf of the prosumers thank you each of you for being willing to step up and for having you with us and we I'm just so bold as to say in your future endeavors whenever you look at what are the issues of mental health and San Antonio remember the prosumers we have a unique point of view in that we work we are the ones receiving all of the services that look really good on paper but don't always translate into what we expected them to do so thank you so much for being here and for all of you thank you so just to remind you we didn't put this together by ourselves first and foremost I would like to thank all of our volunteers woo yeah I especially want to thank Cindy Trevino Cindy Cindy really thank you this is your win and your victory thank you Mr. Reese