 You guys can hear me? Welcome, everybody. I want to thank you guys for coming out today on a Saturday starting your weekend off with us. I know some of you might be nursing that oyster bake hangover, so we appreciate you all coming out. It's really important that events like these occur in our neighborhoods so that we know that District 1 is making informed decisions. Not only is it important for you to see the candidates, but it's important for them to see us. They need to be accountable to our needs and make sure that we, as a district, are rising up together. So thanks again for showing up. This means a lot. We need to do a better job of making sure that we go out to the polls. Our last municipal election, we had 15.9% voter turnout for District 1, and I believe just 12.9% citywide. So we can and must do better. Good morning, everybody. So I would like to thank the neighborhoods that help us plan this and have volunteers here this morning. We had five points, Tobin Hill, Almas Park Terrace, Alta Vista, King William, and Beacon Hill, who all chipped in to put this together. Thank you. And collectively, we agreed to ask the League of Women voters to moderate. I had worked with them in the past, and it's nice to have an arms-length ability to have someone come in and take care of that. And it's one of their mandates, what they do. So we thank the League of Women Voters for being here this morning. We also have Nowcast SA in the room. They do a great job for us, providing free or donated, I should say, time to livestream and videotape several of our neighborhood events. Tier One, they've been a great partner for Tier One Neighborhood Coalition for different neighborhood associations for public events such as this. So we really appreciate them being here. There's a tip jar out in the front. They are a nonprofit. They do survive on donations and sponsorships and grants and whatnot, so keep them in mind. We want to thank the public theater. This is a great venue that they have provided for us this morning. And so keep them in mind if your neighborhood association or community organization is looking for some really quality event space. We have Move Out Front doing voter registration. So we want to thank them for being here today. And of course, we thank our candidates for running, for being here this morning to answer your all's questions. And again, I want to thank everybody who took the time to be here. So Glenda is from the League of Women Voters. We'll go over the format real quickly. Thanks again, everybody. Oh, it's pretty awesome standing up on a real stage in a real theater. Welcome from the League of Women Voters to this District One Forum. We're missing two candidates who said they would be here. So if they come in, we will welcome them to just start in wherever we are. This was going to be the probably largest group of candidates that anybody has had for a forum. But looks like it might be a little less than we thought. First of all, I want to remind you all that early voting is April 22nd through 30th. And election day is May 4th. In addition to District One City Council race, you have the mayor's race, of course. And you might have a school board election. The League doesn't have the woman power or the funds to cover those. But if you call your school board, they can provide you some information, hopefully. And the Voters Guide, which just came out, has on page two a list of the school boards that are having elections. So if you're not sure, you can check in there. And there are copies to pick up out front that looks like this. We're very proud of it. We've been doing this for years. This one is just fantastic looking. And so is the content. All the candidates, or most of them, the ones who responded, have questions in there that they've been asked and their answers unedited. And if you'd rather have your information in digital form, we have vote411.org. You go online, you type in your address, and it gives you only the candidates that are on your ballot. You can compare them, mark the ones you like, print out your list, and take it with you to the polls. And it just takes minutes to vote because you have your list right there. You just punch all the ones you want and you're done. Okay, that's the end of our commercial. No, it isn't quite. I would first like to introduce the president of the San Antonio League, Adu Shreeter. We'll stand up. She has been the inspiration for a tremendous increase in our visibility in town, and we hope to keep doing more and more. When you came in, you were given index cards to write your questions on. That's what the candidates will be answering, as well as some questions submitted through YouTube on the Nowcast website. These are the questions that you and your district want to know the answers to, so that's the best thing that we can do is have the candidates answer the specific questions that you want to know about the officials that you're gonna be electing. If you haven't asked your questions yet, raise your hand, we can give you a card. Once you answer it, raise the card, and we'll get it over to me. We will just keep asking questions until we run out of time. The candidates will start with a one minute opening statement, and then we will start asking questions. Each candidate will answer the question, and we'll go in ballot order, and then rotate so that each candidate goes first, and last, and in the middle. All questions must be directed at all the candidates, no specific questions for an individual. Please hold applause and any other reactions until the end, and then you can applaud all you want. No recording or streaming is allowed unless it has been authorized by the league, and it must be played in its entirety, no clips or use in commercials or anything like that, except for news clips. We've already thanked Nowcast. They do a wonderful job of providing information to the public. Yeah, you can applaud for that. They record a lot of our forums, and it really spreads the word to people who can't get to our forums for one reason or another, and it's just wonderful. And this one will be online, so tell your friends who couldn't make it to this that they can still benefit from it by watching Nowcast. The League of Women Voters does not support or oppose any party or candidate. We have a 99-year reputation of being nonpartisan and nonbiased, and we plan to keep it that way, which is why we were chosen to moderate this forum. So we will begin. All the candidates were invited. Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Unden did not respond, and the other two hopefully will show up. They did say they would be here, so we will see what happens. I'll let the candidates introduce themselves with their one-minute opening statements, beginning with user. Yes, Mr. Zavala. Oh, let me just say first, our timekeeper. We do have a timekeeper. This is Martha Lankford. She'll be holding up 30-second signs and stop sign. When the stop sign goes up, please just finish your thought very quickly, and we'll move on to the next person. Okay, Mr. Zavala, you can go ahead and start. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for having us here on behalf of myself, and I'm sure I speak for my colleagues. I want to wish everybody a happy Easter. I know it's coming up. First of all, let me say that I'm a 67-year-old retired veteran. I was Army, Navy, and Air Force. I've also worked for the Department of Justice, and the role is the Board of Patrol Agent. I am here running for City Council because I believe there's a change that is needed. My platform is to make sure that the senior citizens, the youth, the disabled, and the veterans are taken well care of. Currently, we are in a crisis when it comes to our properties being taken. I shall do everything I can within my power, even if it means going up to Austin and to represent the senior citizens who have earned the right to live a comfortable life. And I would appreciate if you were to vote for me. Thank you. Thanks, Ray. I'm Oscar Magana, I'm also a vet. I'm 34 years old. I'm not retired. I currently serve the community, the business community, as an international trade specialist for Department of Commerce. I want to help the city. The reason I joined to be City Council, I want to help the city in four ways. First off, I want to stop the frivolous spending that the city can does. Second, I want to help the business community and attract more business to San Antonio, help the business that's currently here and also attract more business to San Antonio. Third, we have to help the workforce development. A lot of companies are arguing that we don't have enough skilled labor force and that hurt. We need to help those people that are interested in getting a higher payer job to get the correct training. And fourth, we have to keep San Antonio's charm, a historic preservation. Let's continue to protect those neighborhoods that have the historic charms that attract people of San Antonio in the first place. So we need to keep that. And I hope I got you, appreciate it. Thank you. First of all, thank you to the League of Women's Voters, the Tier One Neighborhood Associations and everyone else that was involved in processing and getting this thing started today. I've attended many of the Tier One Association meetings and Neighborhood Association meetings and it was clear to me through this whole process that we have a huge level of distrust and with our city government. We're concerned about how they spend. We're concerned about what we're spending on and some of the actions that are taken by council. That's why I decided to run. We're out to talk to increasing that trust and efficiency of our city. The way we're gonna do this is work with three main groups in our campaign, the neighborhoods and associations, the business community and the nonprofits. We're gonna do that through education, economic inclusion and engagement. We're out talking to everybody. I look forward to spending this time with you today and I'll be here afterwards to answer any of your questions. Thank you. My name's Lauda Bustamante. I'm an attorney. I've been licensed by the Texas Supreme Court. I'm an officer of the court. I've attended most of the colleges here in San Antonio, San Antonio College, St. Phillips, Trinity University. I have a degree from UT at Austin, a degree from University of Houston. I've also attended North Texas State up in Dallas. I was elected to the Edwards Aquifer Authority, served there for four years. I have 10 children, nine grandchildren. My father was in World War II. I have a daughter in the Army. I have a black belt in karate. I think I'm well qualified to be your next city councilman on district one and I'm sure I can solve the problems of sidewalks, animals, safety and thank you and vote for Lauda A. Bustamante. Thank you. Good morning, I'm Roberto Trevino. I'm your city councilman for district one and just many of you already know me. You know my staff, you know that we've been working alongside with you with neighborhoods to make sure that we're protecting, preserving and providing for compatible development in our city. I wanna declare with you that this is the decade of the neighborhood. This is the time to do it and it starts right here. We've been very, very proud of all the work that we've done, which is what we're running on. We're running on the very work that we have established. The fact is that we are working very, very hard every day to provide compassion, inclusion and most importantly, representation at city hall for you. Thank you. Okay, now we're gonna start with the questions. Starting with Mr, I've got my list up of course. Starting with Mr. Magana. Then we will continue down the line and back around. What do you see as the number one most pressing problem in district one and what is your solution to the problem? That's a great question. There are a lot of problems in district one but I think the main one, you can drive through neighborhood, you go through one neighborhood and it's really nice and you go to another neighborhood and it's not. San Antonio has the highest inequality in the nation and I think we need to address that and that's how I plan to address it because we need to get more business into San Antonio and people qualify to work on those businesses. San Antonio has so much to offer, has so much. Recently I was reading on an article that UTSA is charged of doing construction in the moon. So they're gonna do construction in the moon. So that's the jobs that we're doing, the jobs of tomorrow. Something that you would've never imagined or you imagine as a kid working in the moon, that we can do that in San Antonio. We can actually work on making history, preserving history and making history by doing the jobs of tomorrow and that's how I wanna solve that problem. Thank you. The number one issue is property taxes. Plain and simple. If I knock on every door, the first person, any time anybody talks about as property taxes, it's obviously affecting people in our neighborhoods. It's driving people out of their homes. We have to obviously pay for the services and facilities that we maintain as a city but we have to figure this out and the Bear County Appraisal District is City Council finally authorized the money to do a study and to see how we do it compared to other cities. Mr. Trevino abstained from that vote and he's currently the chair of the Bear County Appraisal District and has had four and a half years to fix it and it's time that we put ourselves to work as a city and to make sure that we have equity and fairness on the property tax issue. Because if we don't, there's gonna be many more people losing their homes. Am I on? Okay. A loud applause to Monty. I think safety is the number one issue. We need to be safe when we go to Fiesta. We need to be safe when we walk down the sidewalks. We need better sidewalks, safe sidewalks, lighting. We need some good lighting downtown especially. We need to know that our children are safe when they walk to school, safe when they come back, safe when they're in school. Domestic violence is a big problem in San Antonio. DWI is a big problem. Those problems can be solved. Other cities have done very well with those problems. We can do the same. And I look forward to making San Antonio safer and having everybody feel secure when they go down the sidewalk or come downtown or go anywhere in San Antonio. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Postamante. I agree with you on some of those issues regarding infrastructure and wanna point out that we put out the first ever lighting plan for the city, urban lighting plan that just got adopted as a resolution to provide better lighting throughout the city no matter where you live. We have a sidewalk master plan that's also gonna provide better sidewalks and infrastructure implementation throughout the city. But the number one issue really is about the momentum in our city, the momentum that is pushing us but also creating this fear within our neighborhoods in terms of people feeling like they're being left behind. So housing is so important, protecting our neighborhoods, finding ways to help people age in place, stay in their homes and providing those protections, which is why I started the Under One Roof program. I support the Mayor's Housing Task Force recommendations and believe we gotta follow those and work alongside the comprehensive planning strategies that help us build a strong community for all of us. The number one problem here in District One, as well as all over the city is public safety. As senior citizens, we can't go to the local convenience store without being approached by the panhandling, non-working, non-productive people that we have invited here. Our spending and haven for hope on the budget is outrageous. By public safety, we're putting, the city is putting the residents in danger. It's a clear and present danger. It shouldn't be. We're trying to make San Antonio look like San Francisco. We should be unique. The authority, the law enforcement should not be being sued, nor should the first responders. We need to take back our city and make it a safe zone, not only in District One, but all over. If we continue going the way that we are, we're gonna end up like Detroit. And I don't think that I will ever let that happen. Thank you. I started. Oh, you started. Okay, right. I mean, I could keep going. I would love that. No, that's okay. That's okay. Okay, next question. What is your impression of San Antonio's draft climate action and adaptation plan and how likely are you to support it? I think I wish I would have seen more community input. I know there was a group of 80 people that were selected. I think we should have, I see the SA 2020 plan as a blueprint. When way back when that was starting to be done, it really was out in the community. And the ideas came from the community. This was a report that was created by a select group of people. And I think there's some great input into it, but I really think it should have came from the neighborhood associations, as well as the business community and the associations. There could have been a lot more meetings that were done to generate the ideas from within. I think too often we leave those ideas out. I mean, I'm in the hotel industry and we get some of our best ideas from our line level employees that create the best ideas for our companies. And I think I would like to see a little bit more of that come from it. I don't know how we can support a plan that doesn't have specific actions in it. It just right now has dollar symbols on it. And I think it's a very scary message to send to the community when there isn't a lot of action behind it. And I think the community deserves to have specific actions that they create, that they want to participate in, because it's all of us that have to get it done. And I think that's very important. So I would be very hard to support the current plan, but I think there's enough support of, that's why I think they keep kicking it down the road. And I think we'll see more action come from it. I think transparency and accountability in the plan is needed. We need to see where the dollars are going, where they're coming from and where they're going. And also we need to see who's involved, who's doing the bids, and have a checks and balances accountability system. So nothing goes wrong or we don't end up in a lawsuit somewhere spending a lot of money to having to defend something or promote something. So we need more transparency and accountability. We need the communities to get involved. We need more input, especially on the Alamo renovation plan. Thank you. Thank you. Well, first I just want to commend my colleague, Councilman Sandoval, for leading and spearheading the Climate Action Plan. The scary thing is to kick the can down the road. We can't afford to do that anymore. And in fact, it was Councilman Sandoval that also helped to draft the resolution for public engagement that the city adopted. And so it is something that we're out talking with the community about. It is something that we're addressing. And the reality is we need to get started, right? We can maybe disagree with parts of it and say, well maybe this is gonna take a little longer, that's gonna take a little longer. But we can agree that we've gotta do something. And that's what I think is at the heart of this Climate Action Plan. And ignoring that is just really a tactic, a tactic to kill something, to kill it by delay. And I think that's critical. I think before we do anything, that there should be communication between the residents and city council. And that has not been happening on this climate change. And I'll give you another example. The scooter system, they're bringing 1,000 scooters or more and then they're gonna want our help to figure out what went wrong. That's exactly what's happening with the climate change. There isn't any communication. That bridge has gotta be built and maintained and cannot be destroyed or torn down. We need to understand why we wanna do something beforehand, not afterwards. Some of those plans in the climate change are gonna affect the senior citizens a great deal. Why do we wait till the last minute? And I'm talking, we need total representation, not selective representation at city council on the climate change. We need to talk more, hold more hearings, more meetings. Thank you. Well, I actually agree with Councilman Trevino. We can't delay it any longer. I don't agree with everything on the plan. I actually read it and I like the fact that we, San Antonio, have less greenhouse gas emissions than Austin. Pat yourself on the back. Yeah, so I'm also reading on the plan that the majority of the greenhouse emissions coming from San Antonio is stationary. So it's the housing and it's the businesses and all that energy that we use. I know CPS is helping with that to go solar and having more clean energy. The other one is transportation. So we, as a community, we need to find out more ways of better transportation, greener transportation. And also San Antonio, we need to do a better job on creating a smart city, which is why we need transportation in San Antonio so we don't have to use our cars as much and have that many greenhouse gases. Thank you. Mr. Bustamante, you start. If immigrants are sent to San Antonio, what would you propose to handle the impact? San Antonio is a very generous city and we have an abundance of wealth and resources here. And we, I compliment the charitable organizations, Catholic Church and their help with the immigrants. We're a city that's passionate to human rights to human rights and we should continue that. I think immigrants have a lot to offer. They have a lot of abilities, skills that we can use to grow the city. So I really believe that we can handle immigrant influx in San Antonio and we should welcome it with open arms and show the world that we believe in human rights and human compassion and our doors are open to everybody. Thank you. I'm a border kid. This is something I'm very passionate about. Immigrants are welcome in San Antonio and anywhere in this country. They're especially welcome wherever I am. It is incredible to think about the inhumane policies that this current administration is putting out. But I'll say this, I'll do everything in my power to make sure that people realize that this country provides humanity, provides compassion, provides inclusion for them. I was there the night that ICE dropped off 400 families in the middle of the night just before Christmas. I was there with Sister Pimentel and McCallan realizing that she has to see almost 600 immigrants a day. She's not an emergency specialist. This is appalling and I will do everything I can to make sure that we apply our resources effectively, thoughtfully, and with humanity. I for one believe, because I live by this code of charity, compassion, and patriotism. I give when I can, I help out when I can, but my allegiance is to America, the United States. Yes, we welcome the immigrants, but they have to be vetted. They can't let everybody with a thug, a rapist, and I'm not trying to scare the people. It's a fact. Some of these people are not good people, and we need to have all those charities, especially Catholic charities. I mean, if I was in charge, if I was the Archbishop, I got plenty of land over there where I'm at. Why can't we put up a tent city? Why can't we feed them? Instead, we rely on the residents of San Antonio, and let's face it, I live about a mile and a half from the bus stop, the bus station, and so I'm gonna try to help. Thank you. It's an ongoing issue, and it's gonna continue to grow. I don't have the answer right now, but I don't think we can close the doors to people. At the end of the day, it's people. This is a much larger issue. I have a lot of friends in the border, and then they see it every day, where it's happening, where ICE agents, they just drop them off on a gas station, and it's a lot of people, it's a lot of people, and a lot more people are coming in. We have to do something at a local level. That's for sure. I don't have the answer for that right now, but we do have to do something and help the people that are coming in on our local level, but primarily I think it's more of a federal issue that needs to be at a federal level. The immigration needs to change. The immigration laws need to change. That's way above my pay grade. Thank you. Well said, Oscar. The fact is, none of us would be here probably if it wasn't for immigration. My family came through Italy. I'm a boarded kid from up in Canada. Grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, where we lived on the border for 15 years, and the facts are that immigration is what we are. We're a melting pot of society. We as a council have to be the bully pulpit for state and federal. We need to be screaming at the top of our lungs and going and talking to our elected officials above us, but we represent you, and you tell us what to do, and I think that's the important thing is, it's dividing us. It is dividing us, and it should be bringing us together. This is an issue that we're all passionate about. We all have nonprofits and different associations. You want to talk about immigration affecting industries and work and workforce? It's happening. The guy that's leading our country uses the immigration system to run its hotels. I mean, the reality is it's very disingenuous when he's talking about getting rid of certain work visas and then talking like he is. It's unacceptable. And we should be out there fighting. And unfortunately, it's not something we can take council action on, but it's something we can take council action in terms of us, 10 and 11 of us, going up to DC and saying, fix this. It's hurting our economy. It's hurting our workforce development. It's hurting our residents. Next question starts with Mr. Trevino. How will you prevent displacement in our downtown neighborhoods? That's a great question, and it goes back to one of the biggest issues that we're facing, and that's growth while allowing people to stay in place. And we're working very hard. We created the risk mitigation fund, which we increased to $1 million. We know we need more money for that. And the way that works, it can't go to any one specific program or project. It's city-wide. It's first come, first serve. But we start by talking about affordability, affordable housing, and making sure that we're looking at all our incentives to help balance the growth with the ability to invest back into our community, providing a way to say, let's look at this holistically. We wanna follow the Mayor's Housing Task Force model, which says, let's get a housing person, a housing czar in place to start talking about this so that when we look at these developments, when we look at these incentives, when we look at all the issues going on the city, there's somebody that's always gonna put that lens on it. That's always gonna be evaluated. And that's so important. We're also doing a lot of to protect the existing housing that we already have. It's my place here. Yes. Okay. Currently, the developers are moving in because we have residents who cannot maintain their homes. Why can't we help those residents and keep them in their homes rather than having them sell out and the developers come in? And the next thing you know, they remodel or tear down and rebuild. And guess what? Your neighborhood taxes go up. Their value property values go up. So we need to improve our method of keeping our older homes livable. You know, right now, there used to be a phase called affordable housing. That is no longer in existence. And I got that from the city manager. The correct term is housing affordability. How are you gonna maintain your house? How are you gonna keep your property from being taken over and you're having to sell out because you can't afford the tax rate? My idea is this. We cut down on the erroneous spending from city council and invest some of that money that goes to these certain non-profits to help us, the residents. Thank you. I guess tornadoes here, right? So I would be interested in actually seeing if we could lower the age for the homestead exemption because I've been in my house for six years and as many of you know, that's going up a lot, my appraisal. And my paycheck isn't. So I don't know how people that are on fixed incomes would be able to afford that. It's just impossible. This mathematical equation where you can do that. I would be interested in proposing a homestead exemption at a lower age, depending on how long you've lived in that house, you just freeze it. So you would be able to continue to live in that house as long as you may. Thank you. When you look at the overall level of income that people are making, it's pretty scary at the levels that our city is at. The serious discussion has to happen and this is where I think fundamentally some of us will disagree is we have to have discussions about our total economy and what we're doing. We have to ask the question why people are losing their homes. It's kind of like when the propositions came up and we were focused on the city manager and her wage, well we should have been concerned about the average hourly wage of the lowest paid person and how we got that higher. Because if we can fix those things, we're putting too many band-aids on issues. Let's take the band-aids off and find out what the real issue is. There are specific things we can do. Developers can pay into a property trust. When new development happens, where that money can be saved for affordable housing. There's lowering the exemption age. There's lots of things to discuss but let's get to the heart of it. Let's get to the heart of really having the discussion of how we improve our economy to where there is income level for everyone so we don't have to worry about those issues. I served on the city economic development committee for a while and we saw a lot of these problems and we saw the solutions. The solutions are in becoming a smart city, doing the smart city development programs. Data sharing. Other cities have solved these problems. We can solve them too. Other cities have given rebates back to property owners, discounts to property owners. They've also had many, many situations where a higher city tax, a higher sales tax instead of a higher property tax. There's all kinds of solutions. We need to start talking about these and developing so people don't move from the south side to the northwest side because they can't afford their house on the south side. Thank you. Okay, we're back where we started. Mr. Zavala, what have you done or what will you do to support San Antonio's LGBT community? I believe inequality, transparency, and accountability. I can guarantee you, because I will not make a promise, the promise can be broken, but I guarantee you that I will hire any person regardless as to who they are, what they believe in, if they're highly qualified. I will not be one of the members that will act in a selective way. I will be all inclusive. Thank you. As Mr. Raymond said, we're both prior military, so we see a lot of different backgrounds of everything. So we're pretty used to that. In that sense, as city council, I would approve the non-discrimination ordinance. I would push for that. And again, I mean, discrimination is wrong at any level. It's sexual orientation, age, ethnicity. At any level, it's not right. Thank you. I'll just be me. The reality is I am a gay male, and I don't look at us as being any different. And I think lots of people have come to me lately and said, how do we help the LGBT community? And the reality is you just look at us like anyone else sitting in this audience. We're just the same as you. Don't try to treat us differently. We're not asking for anything besides equality. And the reality is when we dictate to other groups that something needs to be done, we should be acting the same. And I think our non-discrimination ordinance should say one thing. We don't discriminate against anyone or anybody or anything. And we should have an office of inclusion at the city that has an 800 number that anybody can file a complaint against any issue and then they look into it. It should be against seniors, LGBT, African-American, any, the minute we start putting boxes around things, we get into this device of issues. Proven by some of the council actions. So that's what I would do. The nucleus of this problem is the US Constitution, Constitution of the United States of America, the Texas Constitution, which gives everybody equal rights and does not allow any government to discriminate wrongfully. So the solution of the problem is starting with the Constitution. If it passes constitutional muster, then it's okay. If it doesn't, if it's discriminatory, if it violates people's rights, then it doesn't pass constitutional muster, then it shouldn't pass. We have a lot of ordinances and laws that are discriminatory and that violate people's rights and they go against the US Constitution and they should be eradicated. People have a right to live the way they wanna live. They have a right to do what they wanna do and to live a lifestyle that they want as long as they don't hurt anybody. And that's why we have the US Constitution that protects us against the wrong that anybody can do against anybody violating their rights and especially their constitutional rights. Thank you. So just again, we're running out of work. We worked very hard to find a permanent home for the Bright Center at Metropolitan Methodist Hospital. We're really, really proud to have worked with them. Also worked very hard to create an incredible symbol here in the city of San Antonio working with Chris Vorbrick, Philip Barsena, who are in the audience today to talk about ways that we can further strengthen our core values. The NDO is something that was adopted, came from District One. We continue that as our mission and believe that this is the right thing to do. Additionally, we have advocated for more positions at the Office of Equity and Inclusion. The Office of Equity and Inclusion is representing the entire city and providing more funding to that office is critical in terms of how we review our contracts, how we look at different pieces that the city does every single day. And that is critical. We wanna put a lens on it. We believe equality is one of the most important things we have to look after our city, which is why we did the Spanish translation, free speech, handicap accessibility at City Hall for all, and many other things as well. Okay, next question, starting with Mr. Magana. Will you support the resolution brought before City Council for an independent review of the Vista Ridge Pipeline? You can answer yes or no. If you have explanation, you can spend some up to a minute on that. Could you repeat the question? Will you support the resolution brought before City Council for an independent review of the Vista Ridge Pipeline? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, and there's actually more reason behind that because quite frankly, this is exactly what we have nothing to hide. We should always look under the hood. I'm somebody that utilizes our city auditor in a way that looks at many different things to help us get a better understanding of where our tax dollars are going. In fact, when I asked the city auditor to audit sidewalks, he kind of laughed, well, sidewalks? Yes, because it is literally one of the biggest expenditures that we have as a city. And understanding how we spend those dollars is so, so important. So I support it because this is a big expenditure and if it means that we find something that we can correct or improve to help us save with tax dollars, we absolutely will do it. And that's the whole reason. By the way, I also advocated for independent ethics officer for our city to help us review many different things that are not just financial, but rather just the way our process is as a city. Independent auditing is critical. I do support independent review. Currently, the Vista Ridge Project was stuffed down our throats without even being asked. And I, for one, don't believe in spending money that is not necessary. You know, we have other sources of water that are a lot closer than the Vista Ridge Project. What happens if those people decide, you know what? The heck with this contract, we need our water during a drought. We're not gonna give San Antonio their portion that they bought. This is asking for trouble. The same thing happened with the Colorado River when the nuclear power plant down in Bay City needed water to cool down their reactors. What happens if the Colorado River Authority says, no, we're not gonna give you the water. We're gonna be hanging out the dry. So yes, I do support an independent study or an auditor that does not have any connection with city council members. Thank you. Okay, starting with Mr. Holley. This is combining two questions dealing with gun regulations. What do you all think about gun control, especially people owning AK-14s machine guns and also dealing with licensed open carry? Mr. Holley. Just overall gun control. I am a fifth generation farming family in Wisconsin. We've had our family farm since 1883. I own guns, but they all are in my parents' house in Wisconsin. I do have a gun cabinet in my house that when my father decides to let me have my guns, then he'll bring them down to me. The reality is I do think it's our given right to have them. It scares the heck out of me when I see somebody walking in front of the Alamo with a long rifle, although it is their given right as our constitution. I think my brother was a police officer and so in the hospitality industry we see gun violence every day, unfortunately. And I think there has to be some type of policies and procedures when it comes to guns. I background checks fully. I personally am a victim of gun violence. When I was the regional vice president of operations for La Quinta in Oklahoma, one of my general managers in front desk agents were murdered and I was the lead witness in a Capitol murder case. So I do have a background in this and I will passionately make sure that gun rights are followed, but then also that we protect everyone. Texas, when people come to Texas to visit, they get searched for guns. And if they don't have a gun, they give them a gun. So guns don't kill, rifles don't kill, people kill. So we need to address the people. I mean, guns are just a symptom of the problem. We need to look at the people that are carrying those guns and buying those guns and stockpiling those guns. Those are the people that are dangerous or can be dangerous. So we need to focus on good, responsible people to have these guns and that's where the problem should start with the people and the people that are buying these guns, thank you. So right now you come to City Hall, license or no license, you cannot bring a gun. That's the law. And I think it's what people are asking is for us to tackle this sensibly and have a conversation. I was recently at Alamo Heights High School with a bunch of students who talked about their fear, all the things that they're hearing in the news, all the massacres and the issues that are happening, people want sensible, sensible regulations. I think that is a conversation I'm willing to have. I promise those kids that we would have some town halls discussing this, talking about their fears, talking about some ideas so that we can address this sensibly, thoughtfully and most importantly, we wanna help to alleviate that fear that our kids are feeling. Thank you. Mr. Very good question about gun control. I and my whole family are responsible gun owners. We never use them for offensive moments only to defend ourselves. Being in the military and being a federal agent at one time, I was taught proper gun safety and responsibility to know when to use that weapon to defend yourself. Currently, the city council and Mr. Trevino is correct. You go in, you get searched. I mean, you go to a mental detector and that's great, but we should not live in fear because someone's carrying a gun. I believe I'm a strong believer in the Second Amendment, but along with that comes responsibility. You just can't let everybody have one. There should be some kind of a mental aptitude test to clarify their ownership. Thank you. Very sensitive topic, very sensitive topic. I mean, we saw it at Sutherland Springs here in San Antonio. It hurts because the perpetrator, he was a prior air force and I was there for him. But there was a, I mean, he fell through the cracks. Unfortunately, there's a lot of laws he should have never owned a gun, but he was able to buy a gun. Even though there were laws that he should not buy because he got kicked out of the Air Force for domestic violence, somebody with domestic violence shouldn't own a gun. That information was not distributed to the right-wing authority in the Department of Justice and so he was able to purchase a gun. So I don't know if adding more laws would actually help. We just need to make sure the ones that are there need to be enforced and people need to be accountable. I agree with what we're raving. I mean, I was taught how to use a gun. We need to maybe do a license so people can learn how to use a gun before they're able to purchase it. Thank you. Next question starts with Mr. Mr. Monty. How would you work with SAISD to preserve our neighborhood schools and thus our neighborhoods? San Antonio has a lot of school districts. This has been on the table for a long time and I think it should come up and that is consolidation of the school districts. If we can consolidate the school districts, we'll have a more equitable distribution of the wealth instead of all the wealth really going to the north side schools. So consolidation of the school districts I think is the way to go and we should work with the county. City and county should work to consolidate the school districts. Charter schools, voucher programs, they're all on the table and they're all for the benefit of the children. Not the benefit of the builders or the benefit of the high paid administrators but for the benefit of the children. Thank you. So this is several parts to this. There's the funding that the school districts get and certainly I was helping the school district with their bond program to make sure that we get more dollars towards their ability to upgrade their facilities and want to continue to create more funding. This goes back to property taxes and how that is funded by the state. The bigger issue too is what is it the city can do to help school districts? We work alongside with our office of historic preservation. We invest a lot of money in that department to make sure that we're looking at all our buildings not just in neighborhoods but in school buildings and commercial buildings and we created the vacant building ordinance. We also work with SAIZ specifically to create what we call a cultural heritage curriculum. It's a wonderful curriculum. Please ask me about it. I want to commend our office of historic preservation and department of arts and culture because what it does is it creates a real partnership with the school district to talk about the importance of these things, the importance of preservation, the idea that there is a job path to those that are looking to be in preservation jobs to be in these kind of roles that actually help the community. I for one believe that the SAIZ should have the input of the city council. Currently SAIZ is running on their own. I understand that most of the schools in the SAIZ have now gone to become academies, a specialization as you will, which is a great idea because not everybody's gonna be a lawyer or a doctor or a pilot. So we need to focus on concentrating on helping those in the SAIZ to develop some kind of a career focus of what they wanted to be. I for one, I wanted to be a law enforcement officer and I accomplished that but only by focusing on my goal. And right now SAIZ is lacking in the population because most of the people are moving out of the district. Thank you. I like that point that he touched because I spoke with the constituent earlier this week and he was from the south side but he works here in the district one area. So he was telling me when he grew up, he wasn't exposed too much. He didn't know what to do when he graduated high school. So I think maybe we should do that. I helped them get exposed to industry. It helped them get exposed to, hey, this is what you can grow up to be. Like you could work here, you can do this, you could be a mechanical engineer, you could be an architect, you could be a lawyer, you could be law enforcement. But I think we need to be able to work with the school system and have the children exposed to what they can reach their full potential. But just being exposed to it is so much, this guy, he was so impacted because he's like, look, all I grew up with was my parents would work, come home and drink all day. And I was unable to see anything beyond that. So if we can expose the kids and help them imagine what they can grow up to be, that'd be great. Thank you. I wish we had five minutes for education because I think it's the one thing that affects us as a city the most is the education system and how we grow as a city. I think that's what's partially holding us back. I'm number one, I'll be a partner with all three of the ISDs in the district. We have three that represent along with the charters and everything else that are going on. One thing I won't do is I won't mandate the schools to carry a curriculum that we have no right in telling people to do. That's up to the TEA and the state to determine curriculum in schools, not us as a city. Neighborhood schools, it's very concerning that when I went to school, you used to walk to your school and your neighbors and created a community that doesn't exist anymore because of the charters and academies and magnets. We need to bring that back, but we need to put that back and bring it in with the neighborhood association to really drive community and to partner with the schools. In our office and when we win this race, we're going to put one person that's going to be a partner between the schools and the neighborhood associations. Already the neighborhood associations are doing a lot of volunteer things with the schools and I think that's incredible. And then workforce development. I recently did a thing with the TEA and then I'd love to talk to anybody about. So after this, you can come talk to me about it. Okay, this one starts with Mr. Trevino. This is another question combining two here. How would you strengthen citizen participation in terms of both input and decision-making? And I'm going to combine that with, would you support moving council meetings to nights or weekends, making them more accessible to all? Yes to the latter question and we want to make City Hall absolutely more accessible, not just physically, but in these terms, right? We made a big push to make our work at City Hall as available as possible, which is why I pushed for Spanish translation. Most of our city is Hispanic and a large portion of that only speaks Spanish. And to think that as a 2016, we didn't provide anything in Spanish. We didn't provide that translation service. We got that done. We are working to upgrade our technological services to help expand the reach into the community so that people can log in, can maybe even chime in to citizens to be heard from a different locale. And we are looking at different hours. That's actually something we're already studying. We want to make City Hall accessible to everybody. And of course, again, we're running on our work. You know that you can always contact my office. Every one of my staff members is always, always available to help answer your questions and provide you the pathway to help engage in a conversation. And then of course, we communicate that back to the rest of our colleagues. At 67 years old, I've been around for a very long time. And I can remember the at-large government we used to have, where they had the citizens to speak sessions first, then they would hold the meetings at night. Sometimes they'd stay up till three, four o'clock in the morning, but they got the job done. All of a sudden, the new generation came in and said, oh no, no, I can't stay up that late. So they moved the meetings over to the daytime where the working class people cannot attend. Senior citizens can't really attend because they have to take the buses, two or three buses at a time. That puts a burden on them. So they used to be able to televise citizens to speak sessions. They don't do that anymore. Why? Why did they go away from it? Where's the transparency? Also, just to let you know that when you go down to citizens to speak, all you're doing is you're venting, or venting rather, because nothing, no questions get asked from the council to the person speaking. And I don't think that's right. I will change that. Thank you. Again, with the second question, I would say yes. I mean, we're here Saturday, so I think we're probably here. We would do that. Also, I've talked to constituents, and they say that they're not involved because they're at work. They're going to school during the week, so it's difficult to go anywhere. Also, with the transportation, you have to get there. So with that one, I don't share his age, but I'm a little bit more over for a digital. We can livestream. Nowcast is here. So a lot of people can see this on YouTube. A lot of people can see this on social media. So that's another issue. They could also ask questions on YouTube, as I was told. So they don't have to be here. So that's another way to include more population into the discussion. Thank you. I'm very pleased that you guys are able to ask the questions from the audience. You go to any of the current essay speak-ups. You have to write it down. And then they go through them, and they might get answered. They should all be answered. We are a service, service. I'm my background is service. Service leadership, hotel industry. A lot of people say, oh, it's the industry. You don't want to tell people you're from. Well, I want to tell people I'm from because it's what raised me and brought me through and got me to where I am today. It's because I got to start at a level and could work my way up. And it's all about customer service. And I'm going to bring that right to the council office. We in the hospitality industry work 24-7. We don't close. I don't close. We are here for you guys. And the fact is we will answer any question any time, any day, and you'll get it from me. My staff will be there to work towards us to help that with the process. But it'll come from me, not somebody else. I'll be available 24-7. And I'll tell you how I'm going to be available 24-7 because you're holding it in your hand. This is a key to your participation. These little jewels, you can take a photo, send it to me. You can text me. You can call me. You can take a video. You can get on the internet and find out about the issue. So you can ask me a good question. So you're holding the key to the future in your hands and these wonderful cell phones that are becoming better and better every day. Data sharing is another way. And smart cities is another way to get a hold of it. We have the ability. We need to use it. Plus, on top of that, at Icing on the Cake, we want to put incentives for you to use this tool. Incentives like Citizen of the Year, or Television Center, Radio, or City Council Day for you. Incentives so people and students have an incentive to get a hold of this. Thank you. Sorry. I'm happy to keep going on this because this is a big topic and I can tell you that there are some rules regarding citizens to be heard. So don't, I think you're hearing a lot of things of what we could do. Your time was up. Nice try. You'll probably like the next question just as well. How would you protect our neighborhoods from incompatible development? That's yours. OK, great. Well, again, we started City Council by protecting one house. And it was important to understand what the cause of that distress was in that one house and how each house added up creates our neighborhoods and how we look at policies at the city. Most of our policies that we've implemented have been centered around protecting neighborhoods. We started by changing the Building Standards Board. No one's ever done that. We changed that completely based, really, it was about representing our community, representing the people that are going through these issues. We also created a roof program called San Antonio Under One Roof, the only one of its kind in the entire country. I'm here to report, by the way, this week the county's coming in. And so it's not only just a district-wide program, city-wide program. And now it's not going to be, it's going to be a county-wide program. Protecting our neighborhoods is so, so important, which is why I advocated for a sidewalk master plan, urban lighting plan, and the roofing plan, of course, want to keep going with the mayor's housing task force recommendations. And please look up our CCRs. Well, we need to protect our neighborhoods for sure. We can't be letting the homeless run around loose, endangering our neighborhoods, committing crimes. But we also cannot let the developers come in. For example, right there at Martin and Medina, we're selling ourselves out. The city gives out the property or sells the property to the investors. They come in, and yes, they're going to build something there. They already have the VIA bus station transfer point in place at Houston and Freel, which is only one block away from the Medina-Martin Street area. And so we're building more and more development, and it affects the neighborhoods. For example, the bridges on the Winnevista, those houses are being eroded. Thank you. With the development, I mean, it's inevitable. We're going to have more and more people in San Antonio. It's just inevitable. I would sit here and lie to you and tell you, oh, we're going to stop it. Probably not. It's going to keep coming. So we need to make sure that it's done in a smart way that works for everybody, but it's still going to keep coming. People are going to keep coming to San Antonio, either coming from other parts of the country, coming from outside the country, but there's a lot of people coming to San Antonio. We are the second largest city in Texas. It's inevitable. We're a great place. It's awesome to live here. People are going to keep coming, so developers are going to continue to come. We just need to make sure that we do it properly. We do it at a steady rate. But it's going to continue to happen. It's going to continue to happen, and we need to work on a solution that works for neighbors and for people that are coming in. Thank you. Oscar, you are right. 66 people a day are moving here. Over a million people get here by 2040. I can tell you talking and walking along the streets, people don't want single-family homes replaced with eight duplexes on a property. That has not been protected. The reality is we should have a policy in place at the district one office that states that if a developer wants to develop in an area that is that, they have to get sign off from the neighborhood associations or 60% of the neighbors before they can do that. And we wouldn't have all these issues that are faced and you guys fight hours upon hours. Short-term rental, type two. A lot of people don't understand what type two is. It's a non-owner occupied. Realities are tearing neighborhoods apart. We had a policy and I sat on that commission that said they were lot facing, and now it's been changed to unit facing without us knowing that. We need to question those things. We need to find out because we cannot let Lavaca and King William become a hotel. Neighborhood associations and homeowner associations and other solutions. Because if anybody, a builder, any time a builder wants to build, they need to go through zoning. They need to get permits. So the neighborhood associations can inject and of course they should be given notice. So that's the solution. And I think we have to compliment those neighborhood associations and the people that work in them for their great work as well as all these candidates here that are really, really good people and excellent choices and well qualified for the office. Thank you. Okay, next question starts with Mr. Zafala. What would you do to improve transparency in San Antonio? Yeah. Well, for one, I believe in true transparency that there shouldn't be any behind closed doors meeting. They should all be televised and they should all be inclusive. You know, for a long time, in fact, Councilwoman Sandoval went on KTSA radio and said she was going to push for more transparency. Well, I called in and I addressed that, I haven't seen any action yet. Why hasn't that happened? We should be asking. So I will do my utmost best. I will guarantee you to make everything transparent and nothing will be held behind closed doors. It's time for, it's like a family. Family helps family. No matter how bad or how good the situation can be, family is always gonna be there. And I consider everyone in district one family and I'm here to protect you and your rights. Thank you. At a federal level, I work for a federal government. At a federal level, we have the Freedom of Information Act but maybe we can do something like that here at a local level where a journalist can ask information that is not classified about what I'm doing. I think we could do that as well here at the local level. Thank you. I think just making sure that everyone understands how to get the information. I shouldn't, if anybody's gone to the city website, which I think a lot of you probably have, you understand how confusing it is to find out any information. We currently have, where all the meetings are broadcast. If anybody's tried to go there, it's very concerning to watch those videos. I had to watch it to watch the Tourism Public Improvement District be approved and I couldn't see half of the conversation on it. The RNC is a prime example. That decision was made behind closed doors. It should not have been. It should have been brought out to the community and brought to you to show a example of pros and cons because there was both to look at that and then a vote should have been called at city council. If we're going to give city resources, you as a community deserve to be in that decision process. And in nine times out of 10 lately, it has not been the case. I think the money is where the transparency should come in. If you follow the money, you'll know where things are happening because it's always about the budget or money this or contract this or bid this or who got this or how much is this person getting. So if we can open the doors and follow the money, especially producing the tax returns, I think that everybody should be in public service should be mandated to turn over their tax returns. So we can see where the money's going or where it's coming from, especially the President of the United States of America. This issue of transparency is very important and I take it very, very seriously. Again, we wanna make sure that we're also not allowing people to sort of confuse and conflate two different issues. When we go into what's called executive session, it is in order to do economic development deals or matters that are part of a lawsuit that are not mature enough to get out into the public at that point. It's not something the city council is requesting. It is something mandated by our city attorney's office and state law. So you're gonna get a lot of misleading information about this and what I can tell you is the first and foremost is transparency comes from relationship with your council member and I ask you to just simply work with me. You all know me, you've seen me work with you over four and a half years and that's exactly how we'll get it done and no, the RNC was not decided behind closed doors. That is flat out false. Okay, next question starts with Mr. Magana. What is your position on the Chick-fil-A decision? Again, non-discrimination is, I mean, discrimination is wrong, either way, either way you see it. This Chick-fil-A incident, Councilman Trevino had said that it was a legacy of anti-LGBTQ from Chick-fil-A, but there was a process, there was a process from the city and there was an RFP and I'm sure there was annotated like, oh, this is Chick-fil-A, we're going for this. And if they had a legacy, they would have stopped it right there. There's federal laws, there's state laws, there's city ordinance against discrimination. So why didn't it get stopped before? Why did it get stopped after? I think it was just a hasty decision and I would have voted no if I was the city council, I would have voted no, or respectfully. I don't eat that Chick-fil-A, shocking. But the reality is Chick-fil-A, there's lots of, I mean, we could get into a whole debate about discrimination and all that stuff, but the city council and the diocese is not the place for it. We are a board of directors over the city manager's office. What should have happened is, if we had a question about Chick-fil-A, and we can always second guess what happens at council, that's unfortunately what eight of us get to do against Mr. Trimino and he's unfortunately has to deal with this for the next few weeks. But he's done a okay job, but I think a lot of us have a different opinion on some of these issues, that's why we're sitting here. And I think the issue for me is that it should have been kicked back to the city, but I think that did it follow the process. Chick-fil-A has a non-profit part of their foundation that monies from Chick-fil-A go up to the foundation. They spend money, the foundation spends money on conversion therapy. It's disgusting. I wouldn't want it, but I would have let the process determine if they're allowed into the airport or not and that was not allowed to happen. Like I said before, it starts with the US constitution and the Texas constitution that does not allow discrimination against anybody or anything. So when they made that decision, it was strictly against the US Constitution and the Texas Constitution. So it was discriminatory. It was wrong. It shouldn't have been done. They need to sharpen up their constitutional guidelines and their constitutional laws. I'm not here to defend Chick-fil-A. I'm here to defend the Constitution if it doesn't pass Constitution mustard, and they shouldn't have done it. Didn't pass Constitution. They shouldn't have disallowed Chick-fil-A. I like Chick-fil-A. It's good chicken. My children like it. My wife works at the airport. She says Chick-fil-A gives chicken to the veterans. When they go out there, they have a Christmas party for the children, and they give chicken to the children. And the children like the chick. They like them more than the Santa Claus there. So they deserve their constitutional rights also. So Chick-fil-A is not at the airport now. We didn't ban them from the city. They were excluded from a contract. And again, don't be misled about a process. We found out about it basically a day and a half before we voted on it. We've worked through the process. We worked through the city attorney's office. The motion I made was legal. It was worked out and crafted in concert with the city attorney's office, city manager's office. And yes, the concessionaire. And I never said the word Christian or religion. I myself am Catholic. This is not about that. This is about a legacy that doesn't belong in our public facilities. I stand by that, and I make no apologies. I've been consistent about protecting the marginalized. Whether you're somebody who only speaks Spanish and now can come to City Hall and make sure that the work that's being done is translated for you. Whether you're disabled and now can come to City Hall and enter the front doors, don't have to go through the basement. These are the kind of things I work very hard for. And that's what you expect out of your district one council member. I am a big Chick-fil-A fan, can you tell? However, it's all about due process. This, to me, when you come in with a two-minute warning, you come in with another player that's not even on the roster. I mean, that's how I see it. It should have been determined to do the right process. And then the reasons they gave, two different reasons. One discriminatory, and the other, like the mayor said, well, they're not open on Sundays. We're going to be losing revenue. Well, which one is it? Is it A or B? Or is it a combination of both? C. All I'm asking for is full accountability. You know, I have to admire the councilman. I do. I respect the guy. He believes he's right. And the others here believe we're right. So all I'm asking for is full disclosure and accountability. Thank you. OK, next question starts with Mr. Magana. What will you do to support better transportation solutions for San Antonio? How will you connect the regional centers to downtown and each other? Well, we would work with VIA. I know they're working with VIA currently. City Council's working with VIA to solve these issues. But more importantly, I think, who rode the bus today? Right. We need to create the culture of taking public transportation. The bus are not bad. I actually like taking the bus. I try to do it on Fridays, which is a little bit more lenient for me at work. I have Wi-Fi. I can take advantage of the hour ride. It does take a long time to get to downtown. It does take a long time to get back home. But we don't have the culture of using the bus. We don't. So I like the fact that UTSA and SAC and a lot of these colleges and universities are having students to go for free. That way, whenever they get out and graduate and come into the workforce, if they're not already there, they already have the culture of using the bus. And then we can start getting more ways to get to the bus and more solutions for public transportation. Thank you. I went to the women in transportation dinner the other night. And I sat next to a PhD in transportation. I was like, whoa. That's like, I asked some questions all night long because I was like, how do we have complete streets? And you define it as complete streets. Does not necessarily mean that every transportation is offered on every street. It's that completely we offer all transportation modes in an entire process of transportation. I was like, oh, OK. Because there's a lot of conversation about should there be bike lanes on buses, on the bus routes, and along Broadway, in the corridor, and I mean, I live on the Primo route that goes up to the Med Center off of Fredericksburg. And the reality is we've got a lot of work to do. And I think the complete street program, as well as the plan that VIA is working on, which is head up by Mayor Cisneros and our Secretary Cisneros and Hope Andrade and a few others, are coming back with a plan that we as voters will have to approve. We all saw the disastrous mode when they tried to push streetcar, and that really wasn't vetted before and how we dealt with it. And this will be a plan that they have to sell to us over the next year, and the council is going to have to take an action to where we support it or don't support it. Well, we have the answer. And other cities have applied the answers, and we should apply them here in San Antonio. Electric buses, electric cars, hyperloop, bullet trains, SpaceX, OK? The solutions are out there. We need to start implementing them. We don't have good air quality in San Antonio, and that's because of the cars. I mean, a lot of people, they like the smell of gas. I mean, they want the smell of gas, OK? Well, these people need to change. Electricity is the way to go. Electric buses, electric cars, clean up the air in San Antonio. Thank you. Thank you for that question. Transportation is a multi-fold issue, and it revolves around how we fund transportation and how we fund our infrastructure around that. So I was proud to support Councilman Saldana in his work to get more ATD funding towards VIA, which we successfully did. But we learned that this is a way to actually improve transportation in San Antonio. Additionally, I've been working with the tri-chairs of ConnectUSA, because they know I'm commonly referred to as Luke's sidewalker. The sidewalks are so, so important. And understanding how sidewalks are built and maintained in our city is a symptom of how all the infrastructure is also done. Currently, our funding for sidewalks, only $0.27 on the dollar, go to actual sidewalks. When you talk about complete streets, it's a lot more complex than what was explained. It's really understanding that we can design things in place, but we also make them a priority for us. We say, we're moving people, not cars. And we've got to get away from this idea of being car-centric. We've been a car-centric city for too long. And that's why I advocated for a pedestrian mobility office of our city and bring back the city architect's position at transportation and capital improvements. This is going to take a big effort, additionally, working with a comprehensive plan in connecting the regional centers thoughtfully. Well, I've been to Elmote, California. Anybody been there? In order to get downtown, you can normally go to the outskirts because downtown area, all you can do is walk. But the amazing thing about it is that they have four corridors leading out to different parts of the surrounding areas. Anybody been to Monterrey, Mexico? They have a solution that we should invest in. And I have a vision. It's long range, but it'll work. You can go from one side of Monterrey all the way to the other side in less than 15 minutes by boarding the overhead light rail system. Cost you 50 cents and you're gone. I mean, doors open, you get in and you're gone. Traffic is a lot less. And I believe that if VIA is to be more successful, they're going to have to conduct more surveys on their ridership because the premium buses are most of the time empty. So I say this, let's do a study and then move on from there and let's go for light rail. Thank you. Mr. Magana, another combo question. This deals with homelessness. Do you have a plan to tackle the homeless crisis and mention your plans for homeless people, panhandlers and so forth in neighborhoods and also haven for hope? No, I don't. I don't have an answer. I'm gonna share with you guys something that most of you don't know, but I was actually homeless after I got out of the Air Force and then I got my bachelor's and I could not find a job to save my life here in San Antonio. So I was living off of my car and I was in the SNAP program and I finally got a job and it paid very little and they were paying me under the table and I could not. I could either go to the department of labor and complain or just get back, which is what I chose the latter, I got that. So it is an issue, it's a struggle, but we need to find out exactly why are people homeless? Everybody's homeless for different reasons. Somebody has mental issues, somebody has drug addiction problems, somebody just had bad luck like myself and we can get back on our feet. Now I'm here running for city council and I got a master's and I was homeless for three, six months and I've lived in worse conditions, but we need to find out what is the root cause of homelessness and then we'll be able to tackle that. Thank you. Well, we as a community need to decide what is a level of acceptance. We haven't done that yet. Homelessness will always be there. That's a fact. Some people don't want to live in an environment where they have restrictions. We live in a municipality, there are restrictions. People choose not to go to Haven because of the restrictions. That's their given right and that's okay, but we have to make sure that we as a society and as a city, there aren't barriers for people to do what they want to do. I think that's the root cause when we talk about how we wanna fund Haven or trust us, our industry gets, we've been asked now to lead the process in finding more ways to fund Haven. Well, let's lead the process of how to create an economy that doesn't allow people to have to need Haven. And I think that's where our city council just loses the vision to find that, let's focus on visionary stuff that helps everyone instead of having to do little specific things that aren't necessarily little one person, but as an overall metrics, we should have to be, we should have an economy that works to make sure that no one has to ask the government for a roof that they can give their own roof. They can call the right people and get their own roof. So let's fix those specific root cause issues as a council. I was downtown with some relatives the other day and there was a lot of homeless people down there and Panhandler was making for money and I didn't wanna be embarrassed. So I just told him, look, these are undercover people that they're protecting city. And it worked, it worked. So the answer is charitable organizations. They give food to these people, they give shelter to these people, they give them counseling advice. We're always gonna have poor people, so we just need to be compassionate and have a way to help them out. And I don't agree with city council passing ordinance, giving them a ticket for $500 because I mean, they're homeless. Well, we agree with that. That's why we got the public restroom installed in San Antonio. We were actually siding people who didn't have anywhere else to go. And SAPD will tell you it solved at least half of those citations. It's a compassionate approach. And by the way, let's look at homelessness and you just heard Mr. Magana talk about what he went through. This affects a lot of people and there's a mental health crisis happening in our city and all over the country for that matter. Understanding how we tackle this is so, so important. We also know that a lot of our homeless are domestic violence victims. And so what the city needs to do is to support the visionary strategy that is at Haven for Hope. They're doing great work. I spent the night at Prospects Courtyard to get a better understanding of what's going on in there. We're also working with Judge Bull to create funding for the first ever, getting some beds for those that have some mental health issues so that we can provide them some treatment and maybe a bridge over to Haven for Hope so they can seek treatment. This is all very critical. And by the way, you also heard how I wanted to get showers for homeless over the Christmas break. I'm here to announce that they'll be here by the end of the month. Please hold your applause until the end. These two topics are my favorite ones. I am the only candidate that has gone down the city council and submitted four proposed ordinances. And Mr. Trevino can tell you that he did receive a hard copy of each ordinance proposal that I suggested. I can only tell you this, Haven for Hope is not being run efficiently. If you don't believe me, take a trip out to Rapid City, South Dakota. My wife and I have taken a trip up there. You're not greeted by an armed guard and a mental detector. You're greeted by the director. Everything is immaculate. The community, I'm talking about all the restaurants in Rapid City donate food to the homeless shelter. Why can't we have that here? Oh, I'm sorry. We have liabilities. Really, the people are starving or not getting nutritional food because the city will not change the liability ordinance. So for this, I say that we need to readjust our way of thinking and stop inviting people on the internet to come down here. Thank you. Next question starts with Mr. Holly. What specifically would you do other than housing issues to help senior citizens in district one? I think one of the things that we're starting to see the city starting to do is a multi-generational community centers. And I think that those are a great way to look at it. But I think we have to really look at the older Americans act and see what we can do. Right now it's funding to the county and then the county is paying to an organization to feed seniors. I think there's some issues with the nutrition of those meals. And I think we have to work towards that. I think our seniors are, I was raised around a lot of older folks and they had big influences in my life. And I think we as a community need to use that generation to really remember where we came from and focus us on getting to where we need to go because they have a lot of intelligence in that brain that we can use to remind us that sometimes we shouldn't be so selfish of ourselves and we should be able to get back to others. I think health is a big issue for our senior citizens. I think awareness of Medicare, Medicaid benefits and opportunities to get screened or home visits by doctors or medical professionals. Regular visits to our elderly I think is important because they sometimes live in their homes and they're not visited by anybody. So I think programs where maybe our high schools can do community service for our senior citizens, tax breaks, incentives, rebates on property tax and rebates on utilities for senior citizens. I think would be helpful. Yes, thank you. And so when it comes to our senior citizens we wanna make sure that we're always looking at ways to help layer on ways to help our senior citizens and give them a way to connect back to our community. As was stated, we do provide one of the only cities in Texas to provide the over 65 exemption where we knock off $60,000 off of your property valuation and then freeze your taxes from then on. We also provide many services regarding senior centers. We wanna expand those. We wanna also provide senior centers that can focus on different groups like LGBTQ senior center that has been requested in my office. Additionally, we're working with nonprofits like Oats. What is Oats doing? We actually set up a place at Kenwood Senior Center to help seniors understand simple technological devices that can help them with everyday tasks like paying their bills, like maybe looking for what the city council is doing on a daily basis. These are important pieces that connect our seniors back to its community. And we know one of the biggest issues what seniors have is that they fight is simply loneliness. So this is a way to connect them back to our community. Two years ago, we had quite a few senior citizen centers in all the neighborhoods. But then Cheryl Scully decided, you know what? Let's shut down most of them and consolidate them. Well, most seniors don't wanna take two or three buses to get to the senior citizen center because it's been moved further away from their houses. They wanna stay close. I'm sure I don't wanna go anywhere else. I mean, I go to the Sacred Heart Nutrition Center because it's close to my house. And we need to reopen those and be more productive in showing the senior citizens that we do care not only at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Valentine's Day. We need to show them all the time. And I'll share this with you. My wife and I, we do a lot of community service for a lot of seniors. And you'll never hear that because I tell the people don't publicize it. Just take my gifts of food and whatever I give you and be blessed. Thank you. Just to clarify, back to the homelessness. When I was homeless, I didn't have a Councilman Trevino's shower. So I would go to the Gold's Gym for $30 a month. You can work out and take a shower. Just FYI, with the senior citizens. So recently I read an article that some city up north was ranked the best place to live. But in that, for senior citizens, San Antonio for retirement, it was the best place, it ranked higher. It ranked higher than Austin. So we're doing something right here in San Antonio. We're doing something right. We gotta find out what that is and continue to work that. But compared to other cities, we're doing a lot better. Well, we can always do better. There's always room to improve. Thank you. Hey, Mr. Bustamante. The new short-term rental ordinance has only been on the book since February. But already several requests for special exemptions have been requested at the Board of Adjustments. What are your thoughts on the density restrictions in the ordinance? Should they stand or be removed? Well, rents are going up, unfortunately. So I think they should reconsider that have people have rent adjustments according to people's income. And then I think that'd be a more equitable rental rates to have in the city as opposed to looking at the national rental scales and applying those. Rents according to income, I think would be a more equitable way to solve that problem. Thank you. So the issue with STRs, again, District One is at the epicenter of a lot of things that are going on in the city and a growing city at that. My office was a part of the shaping of the policies, which is why we also, when we adopted the policy, said I wanted to come back for a review because we knew that there might be some unfortunate loopholes or issues coming up that people may want to take advantage of. And this was one of those. We're gonna come back and take a look at this. We actually have a, on Monday, we have an STR meeting at my field office. Everybody here is welcome to talk about this very issue, to find ways to get the language right. And we'll be working with Development Services, with the community to talk about how we make sure that what we understood to be the language is the ordinance, is the law, and we can make sure that we're protecting neighborhoods with this proportionality is critical. We know other districts don't necessarily feel this, but it is something that's happening in District One and we'll continue to lead on that. So I, for one, believe that the ordinance should be strong, should be direct, and there should be no mistake in the wording, and I agree with you, because it takes away profits from other legitimate businesses, the hotel industry. And for me, when an investor comes in and remiles a two-story home and lets anybody live in there part-time, you know, that's taken away from our profit from the city. And so we need to make sure, like I said, that the wording is beyond a doubt, direct, and accurate, that there'll be no question. And I, for one, will make sure of that. Thank you. Who here has been in an Airbnb? Yeah, pretty cool, right? Sorry, but remember, I was homeless once, right? So it is a lot cheaper in a hotel. I mean, that's what you're going up against. But I do agree with Councilman Trevino. There has to be a balance, there has to be a balance. I did one in New Orleans and it was really nice, you know? Right there, the French quarters, it's great. But it has to be a balance. Again, the neighborhood associations would probably be the ones to help City Council on what would be that balance. What would be the balance for their neighborhood, for their specific neighborhood on that short-term rental? And every district, every neighborhood is going to be different. When we're in district one, it's downtown. A lot of people, when they come to San Antonio, they want to go downtown. They want to go see the Alamo. They want to go to Riverwalk. They may not want to be in other parts of San Antonio. They might not know where to go. That's what I think. Thank you. District re-correct, Oscar. I have never stayed in an Airbnb. I have never stayed in an Airbnb. Although I believe they have the right to exist. And the reality is, there's two, we could go on for probably an hour on this subject, and I'll probably be at Mr. Trevino or Councilman Trevino's meeting that night because it is tearing neighborhoods apart. Type two is an un-owner-occupied unit. A developer comes in and buys that house and turns it into a hotel. That's unacceptable. Now, I was on the short-term rental task force, and I see many of you out here that were as the same. And we agreed, we actually had stronger restrictions. And if we go back to how this really all started, district 10 created the CCR, not district one. District 10 created it, brought it to the decision. A convenience of 29 of us, I think, were in that meeting. And we agreed to restrictions for type two, higher fees, that all came back and District Council one ripped it out of our hands, changed it, changed it, brought it back to all of us individually. And then we all somewhat agreed to the 12.5% as the density issue. And then that was off of lot-facing, and now it's off a unit, magically. So, Council District One office has to answer to that. Okay, what we're gonna do, we're almost out of time. We originally scheduled one minute per closing statement, but we've answered a lot of questions, and we've only got a little more than 10 minutes to go, so we're gonna give you each two minutes for closing statements. Basically, you've got two minutes each to do whatever you want. We only have 30-second and stop signs, so you can go on until your 30-second flag goes up and then you know you're almost done. So, Mr. Trevino, Trevino, you get to start. Great, thank you. Well, today you heard a lot about the things that are important to all of us, and I can tell you we're addressing those from data sharing, where they got adopted, and that is an important piece because we are connecting people who are maybe not connected with the over 65 exemption at the Bear Appraisal District. This is historic for the entire city, but the entire area, really. You heard a lot about property taxes and that I abstained. I abstained because I'm the chair of the Bear Appraisal District, and we accepted that. Again, you're being misled. The issue is that the property taxes or property valuations and your property taxes are separate, right? So understanding how these items affect you are so, so important. We wanna make sure that we're constantly communicating about how your city government works for you, not to mislead you. So it's ironic to me that you're hearing a lot about transparency, but you're hearing also a lot of misleading information. What we wanna do is we wanna continue the great work in District One that we've started as you've seen. We wanna be compassionate and inclusive and make sure that the policies that we represent in District One are those of voices that might feel marginalized or not heard in the city. And of course, we're always gonna protect our neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are the lifeblood of our community. Neighborhoods have helped shape a lot of the policy that you have seen in District One. We will continue that great work. That is such a critical part of how this community will run. District One has a great staff. We have great commissioners. And you guys, of course, are always welcome to come meet them and work with them. This is part of how we work as a team. The neighborhoods are an extension of our team and how we have shaped that policy. That is exactly why I would like to ask for your vote this coming election. Thank you. Please hold your applause until everybody has spoken and then you can clap to your heart's content. Mr. Ponte. Well, I want to be your city councilman because I want to make this city a safer city, safer for my children, my grandchildren, safer for your children. We also need health, help in the city. We want, I want to make this city a healthier city, bringing electric buses, electric cars, cleaning up the air. I want to improve the economy. I want to lower your property taxes through rebates, through discounts, through anything else we can think of to help you with your property taxes. And I'm going to do all this because I want you to remember this because everybody else remembers this. I can do all this because I have a black belt in karate. And he does. I'm a chart kind of guy. This is the district. It's diverse. There's key facts. We have 145,000 folks here. That are per capita incomes, $21,000. Poverty rates, 22.5% to wake up call, to wake up call. This is district one and how it produces when it comes to revenues, sales tax and property tax revenues. It's a lot of value that comes from district one. It feeds the rest of the city. We've got to talk about engagement, economic inclusion and education. That's why for me, it's all about increasing that trust and efficiency of our city hall. Now who's going to do it? It's you all in the neighborhood associations. You expect a councilman that's going to be out there fighting for your rights every day. That's not only fight for them. We're going to be there with you to fight for them. We're going to talk about bridling our business community. I think I've learned a lot from Oscar on this campaign trail. He'll be a partner with us. Because I think that we all have value of sitting on the stage. And we're going to work to build our business community because the business community, if we could strengthen it, can hopefully leave some of that property tax issues that are on the residential side. We're too heavily residential property taxes compared to business taxes. And the nonprofits, they tie us all together. And the reality is by them out there offering services alleviates a lot of what the city has to do. And then how we do it is through engagement, economic inclusion and education. We have to fight for education every single day. We're not responsible for it, but we have to fight for it. Economic inclusion, we have to ensure that we are protecting all ladders of the rung and build stronger rungs and remove those barriers in between those rungs so people can move back and forth and wherever, which way, compared if they're retired or if they're just entering the workforce. And then engagement. There's anything I hear every day out there is how do I get more engaged? Well, you're going to have somebody that's going to be as engaged as they possibly can. If I ask for your vote and we're going to have a scorecard for every single precinct, all 54. It's going to be a little odd for most people because I think how can you do that? Well, we can get it done in the first 90 days. I think I'm going to stand up. I'll stretch a little bit. All right, so my name's Oscar McGanya. I'm also, I'm military, I'm prior military service. I've been in public service for over 10 years. I continue to serve the business community as an international trade specialist with the Department of Commerce. So I work with companies all the time with small business companies, medium-sized companies and even in large run. Even though sometimes they don't need our help, but if they do, we'll provide it. Our goal is to help U.S. companies succeed abroad. And my goal is to help San Antonio companies succeed here and abroad. We need to do that. We need to strengthen our business here in San Antonio. I think I've mentioned it before. I mean, we are the second largest city in Texas. We have to start acting like it. We can't just have this inferiority complex that we're, oh, we need to look towards Austin. We need to look towards someone else. No, they need to start looking to us because we have more, we have the number one cybersecurity university here in San Antonio. We have so many things here. We have the number one site visit in Texas. We have a lot of things here in San Antonio. And we need to start showing that to the rest of the world what we can do. So as your city councilman, I would work on business, workforce development, obviously cut down spending taxes on things that are not necessary. And historic preservation. I like San Antonio. Many of you, we like San Antonio. This is our home. And like I said, I'm Oscar Magana and I'm counting on your vote, April 22nd, May 4th. Thank you. I think I'm going to stand up. Many of you may not know that I'm an amputee, service connected, but I don't use that as a handicap or any reason to have people feel bad for me because I'm just as good as anybody else with or without my, part of my limbs. However, my mission for San Antonio is to keep San Antonio unique and beautiful as it always has been in my lifetime. We don't need to be Austin, Dallas, Houston or San Francisco or San Diego. I'm all about accountability. I will bring true representation to everyone in district one, not just the chosen few. I will also ensure that all the seniors get everything that they've earned that's required for them, good health. We will form a task force that will check on the seniors when they need help and not just at Thanksgiving, Christmas or Valentine's Day. You show love all year round by caring not just on those three occasions. And also, many of you may not know, but Haven for Hope was supposed to get funding from the city for 10 years and that was in 2001. Here we are, 2019, and we're still helping them out. Why haven't they become self-sufficient? We need to spread the wealth to other nonprofits, not the same ones over and over and over. There have not been very many success stories at Haven for Hope. I'm not against helping people. Like I told you, I live three blocks from Haven for Hope. And at nighttime, when I see these people coming down the street, I fear for my life because I have seen them commit crimes. So I'm always on the neighborhood watchdog. So I respectfully ask for your vote in this coming election, thank you. Okay, now you can applaud. Thank you all for coming. I hope you all go out and vote and tell all your friends to go out and vote starting April 22nd. Candidates, thank you very much for being here, sharing your knowledge. I believe there are plans to have a meet and greet if you're all up for it. It can be in here, it can be out there. I think you put information out there, brochures and stuff. There's League of Women Voters information out there too, our voters guides and other pamphlets and stuff. So enjoy yourselves, stick around. Thank you. April 22nd and runs through the 30th with election day on May 4th. We ask that you please visit the move table on your way out, grab a League of Women Voters guide, share the live stream link that Nowcast SA has provided and then a big thanks to all of you for coming out. This doesn't work without your participation. We hope we see you at the polls. Last thing is Kostima reminding me that Earth Day is today and Woodlawn Park is apparently holding an event if you guys wanna go out and check that out. Thanks again.