 Okay, welcome to the Texas House District 125 special election runoff. Long time ago. I'm sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the San Antonio area and the City of Leon Valley. I'm Linda Wollin, Vice President of Voter Service and I'll be your moderator tonight. By now you've probably heard the day for the runoff has finally been set. Election day is Tuesday, March 12th. Early voting is Monday through Friday, March 4th through 8th. Before we get started, I would like to go over the guidelines and candidates that have been given and some things that we need to know. First, there's no campaign material allowed in this room. If you picked up some brochures, there's some out there just tuck them away so that, you know, they can't be seen, and if you've got any campaign buttons on or anything, just take those off until after the forum. You should have been handed an index card some time before now. So that's for you to write down questions for the candidates. If you just hold them up, a volunteer will come around and collect it and you give it to me. And those are the questions that I'll be asking the candidates. The way this will be going is that each candidate will get two minutes for opening remarks. I'll read each question and the candidates will each have 90 seconds to answer the question. Speaking order will rotate and then each candidate will have two minutes for closing remarks in the reverse order of the opening remarks. The candidates will address the audience and not each other. That's what makes us a forum rather than a debate. Civility will be maintained. No name calling or other bad behavior by either the candidates or the candidates. But I don't think that will be a problem by anybody. No applause except after the introduction of the candidates and the candidate forum. Nowcast is reporting this forum. That's the camera over there. The video will be available for viewing in a day or two on the Nowcast website, NowcastSA.com and on the lead website, LWBSA.org. So anybody that lives in this district that you know that is here tonight, please tell them. They can see this entire forum and it will help them make a decision at full. We don't get anything for pushing people to see it. We don't get travel points or anything like that. I just want everybody to see it before they vote. One more thing, I am required to read the lead mission or this is not an official event. The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan organization does not support or oppose any political party or party. It encourages informed and active participation of citizens in their government and works to increase understanding of major public policy issues. It is a volunteer grassroots organization that has fought since 1920 after winning the right for women to vote to improve our government and engage all citizens in the decisions that impact their lives. Now please make sure your cell phones are off and we'll get started by introducing the candidates. Republicans rather on hell was born in Corpus Christi and what they say about people moving to Texas can be said about San Antonio too. He graduated from Memorial High School in the Edgewood ISD and went on to earn an architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He's the founder and president of Adpo Master Builders which does private and commercial remodeling and construction. He's done construction for Northeast and Northside ISDs. He's been involved in the community serving on several boards, committees and commissions, church boards and his former director and president of the homeowners association. He's been active in the Republican Party. He's also run for San Antonio City Council twice and has managed other candidates campaigns including handling fundraising activities and candidate support systems. I'm exhausted just reading that. Democrat Ray Lopez spent his early years in Charlotte, Texas, which you could maybe call a suburb of Germantown, but grew north in time to go to high school at Harlandale High. And graduating, he had listed in the Army Reserve and served for 14 years. He was first elected to office in 1990 when he won a position on the Northside ISD Board of Trustees and served three terms including his board president. After he was elected to the board for Education Service Center Region 20 where he served until stepping down to run for the San Antonio City Council in 2009 to represent District 6. He held that seat until 2017 when he was termed a letter from running again. Until he joined City Council, he was also working for AT&T from which he retired as an executive after 34 years. Whichever of these men you pit, you know you're getting a hard worker. So let's begin the forum. There, alright. Okay, we're trying to get these sorted out so that similar ones are together. Okay, who will be Mr. Lopez? I think I could follow this into handed me the mic. Just because you were sitting there. Okay. Mr. Lopez, do you support the Feeble Heart Beat Bill that is currently being proposed? I haven't had an opportunity to read the entire thing but the summary that I've heard, you know I don't. Would you like to explain why? Well, first of all, I believe that it's every woman's right to, first of all, have an opportunity to make decisions. We would certainly all hope that those decisions are in the best, you know, in the best thought of the child and her. I believe because of that, I think it's important that we allow women to make that kind of choice. I would also hope that as women are having to make that difficult choice, it would also include the spouse or the husband or the partner that will conceive that child. Because I think it is a choice that needs to be made by both individuals that are involved. But I do believe at the end of the day, I would fall on the side of allowing a woman to make that decision. I believe that that really takes that decision away from her. Right now the law, I believe, declares a time limit of 20 weeks and I would support leaving it there. Mr. O'Hall, do you support the Feeble Heart Beat Bill? I believe that in every case, regardless of the situation and timing of either partial term or full term, in no way would I ever support an abortion bill that will kill another embryo or child. Okay, we're going to reverse the order. Take your turn. Okay, Mr. O'Hall, do you support appealing the recently passed paid sick leave ordinance by the Texas legislature? The paid sick leave act, I think with all well intentions, leaves several things out. And I'm going to give you an example. There is a manufacturing plant that has contracts with the hospitals. And his contract limits the amount that is being spent on every particular contract. And to allow a change in the extension of that particular bill would harm the businesses that have contracts that they cannot increase in that particular way. So the answer is absolutely not because the businesses would struggle to support that type of decision because of their existing contracts. Thank you. The paid sick leave was decided at the city level after I got off of council. Had I been on council, I would have supported the move that the council did. For many reasons, but the most important reason is because I really believe that it's imperative that our municipalities have the opportunity to have local control. If a municipality makes a decision that that's what they want to do. If you want to argue that it's a competitive disadvantage or whatever, it is an issue of local control. And I believe that that's exactly the way it should be. If it gets moved forward at the state level, we certainly be interested to see the dialogue and the language of that. And quite honestly, the chances of it passing at the state level are getting, I guess if you will, killed at the state level. It's probably pretty high simply because it's more than likely a partisan student on the vote. I would hope that there would be a good discussion on both sides to make sure that it's the least intrusive on not only the employees, but also on the issue of local control. Mr. Lopez. Do you support Medicaid expansion and or representative Tray Martinez's pre-existing coverage bill that he recently filed? Absolutely I do. And the issue on the expansion of Medicaid is really going to be tied to where we're going to get the funding to be able to support that. There are areas where the state has an opportunity to be able to partialize some dollars that will be able to support Medicaid. And Medicare and all the issues that are surrounding it are incredibly important not only for the young folks in our community that need that type of support, but also the elderly. While I was on council, I was very adamant and focused on making sure that we got a good benefit back for our seniors. I've always felt that as folks that create laws, folks that create ordinances, we take care of children and take care of seniors. You know, the folks in the middle, you know, as much as you want to give them credit, they have to kind of do it on their own the best that they can, with as much help as they can get. But Jones speaking, if the government will take care of children and the seniors, I think that, you know, we've invested our time and effort well. Mr. President. Do you support Medicaid expansion and or representative Tray Martinez's pre-existing coverage bill that he recently filed? All right, so you have two areas, one existing and the other expansion. Obviously the existing is already under law and obviously, you know, that's something that's important. To understand going forward about Medicaid and those benefits, I would first like to see where the funds are to pay for it. You never move into a direction without knowing how you're going to pay for it. So at this point it's difficult to give you an answer that I would support because I do not know where the funds would come from to be able to expand it. Mr. O'Hill, how will you support funding education, teacher pay and retired teachers? There are several things that are inequitable within teacher or school finance. And I will tell you that I'm a byproduct of having seen many of those issues, many problems through the Edgewood district and then comparatively to the Northside school district. So I've lived in those two districts of three in this HD 25 for 50 years. But I will tell you that the funding, I'm a businessman. I look to the areas where we have inequity, where we have bad spending, where we have bad law to be able to spend in the wrong areas. I am an efficiency broker. And so I look to, like normal business bandwidth, you look to define the costs, to try to find to reduce those costs and also to find a way to increase the services and products for the same amount. Thank you. Well, that's a big, big ticket item that I think is going to get a lot of attention to the legislature this year. There's certainly talking about approximately $9 billion that have been identified that's on the table by the State Comptroller's office that will be parsed out for the big ticket items, education and transportation are at the top of that heap. But being able to sustain investments in education, we have to do one thing first, and that's fix the formulas by which the state distributes the dollars. We all have heard over the last 25 years about so-called Robin Hood and the, you take one to get to the other. We've gone through trying to fix that several times all the way up to the Supreme Court. It's never, that's not sort of the Supreme Court, to the point where the court said, don't come back for 10 years, leave it in place and try to figure something out. So the very first thing we have to do is fix the formulas. The second thing is going to be incredibly important is to generate revenues that will be dedicated specifically for education. But we can't just say we're going to get the teachers to pay. That's exactly what we need to be doing, but we need to go beyond that. We also need to be providing increases for all staff, all educators, to me, custodians, cafeteria workers, all those individuals that walk into that campus are educators. We also need to make sure that their benefit packages are commensurate with the work that they're doing so they don't leave the industry so that we can take advantage of their experience. And there are methods and ways of being able to do that, and I hope to be able to accomplish it. Mr. Lopez, do you support universal background checks on gun sales? Yes, I think that there's got to be a little bit more of an extensive background check on gun sales. And I'll tell you one area specifically that I believe needs to be looked at very, very carefully. And I think we hope that there will be bipartisan support for this. You know, today, if I go into an academy and want to buy a gun, I have to, I mean, I was going to go through some routine of providing identification. If I happen to be on the TSA no fly list, that list does not get reviewed. And I would say, if you're on the TSA no fly list, you probably ought to be held back the opportunity to buy a gun readily. There are some areas where we should be able to go out and create some reasonable assessments of whether an individual should have a gun or not. I don't, and I can tell you right now, many of my friends, certainly those of us that follow the Democratic side, all of you accused of, they want to take our guns and the answer is I don't want to take your guns. I don't want anybody taking my guns. I believe that the right to have that is there and declared in the Constitution. But I do believe that there needs to be some reasonable, some reasonable discussion on both sides of the goddess. They're just some things that we really shouldn't be doing. And that TSA example that I gave you is one of a handful of others that probably could be considered and I would hope would have bipartisan support. Do you support universal background checks on gun sales? There's a difference between universal gun sales and actually going out to buy a gun. When the universal and the particulars on that particular ruling or the intent is that can you buy or sell outside of the normal realm? And this issue harbors on the protection of the Second Amendment. The minute that you begin to dissect and break down our right in the Second Amendment, it goes away. That's how abortion got away. And I think that it's just wrong to begin to work away and chip away at a law that has already been created by our forefathers long time ago because they had a battle between another country and the right to protect themselves. So I would tell you I would not support universal gun law. Okay, keeping into the same realm, how do you feel about the idea of arming teachers? Interesting. If the law gives you the right to bear arms, then why would we break the law and start to stop the situation? See that particular question also goes, is it okay to do this in churches? Is it okay to do it in public places where that's been the discussion? But I'm going to tell you, again, it harbors on changing the very basic law of the Second Amendment giving us the right to bear arms. If the teacher so desired to do this and they wanted to apply within the law to have the right to do so, they should have the privilege. On the service and as deep as it could possibly get, I would not support teachers being required to carry guns. That, to me, is one of the most egregious propositions that we can make to a teacher. They have their hands full, dealing with children. Not to mention the argument of just the general nature of teachers is they are carrying an individual and probably wouldn't be the type that would carry a gun. But that goes beyond the discussion here. I do think we need to do something. And what we can do is to provide more security, more dollars from the state to have security officers in our schools. We also need to be providing a smaller ratio between counselors and students. Right now we have anywhere from 600 to 900 to 1200 students per counselor. If we can get that counselor to student ratio down, those counselors will be able to identify if there are any kids in the school that perhaps have some propensity to create something wrong. We've got to be able to do those kinds of things. Walking around with a gun to take a shot at somebody that you think may be creating a bad scenario, it does not make sense at all to me. And I can tell you that as a parent it doesn't make sense. And I can assure you that as a legislator I would never support something like that. Thank you. Mr. Lopez, what can be done to make San Antonio a less costly place for retirees, specifically lower their property taxes? I'd be all for that. And you're absolutely right. It's the lowering of the property taxes that is the development. The question becomes, who do you lower the property taxes to? Today we all know that at 65 you get an automated $10,000 exemption on your home. But we should be able to have additional discounts or exemptions for folks that are 65 or other individuals that can carry some level of distinction that warrant it. That would take some discussion. But it needs to be capped at a certain level. And if you're going to go out and give a tax abatement to somebody that has a million dollar house, that's a pretty large number. If you go give that safe percentage to someone that has a $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 house, like many of our school districts in the inner city who have today, you're not really giving them just a few cents that you're actually offering them as tax relief. Then the second part of that discussion is if you're going to cut the tax, then what programs are you going to cut? That's the source of revenue that municipalities, states, counties, and everybody has to fund the projects that we need. If you're going to cut the taxes, you've got to have the discussion around what programs you're going to be cutting. And unfortunately, it doesn't get put on the block, typically, or the social programs. And I certainly wouldn't allow that to happen under my leadership. What can be done to make San Antonio a less costly place for retirees, specifically lower their property tax? It is one way that we can help seniors. We must do everything possible to be able to maintain a fixed rate for senior citizens that have fixed incomes. It's difficult. My mother's 81. I can see quickly how the things affect her, but I will say this. The policy of property tax being at the number or 8% every year of increase started when Jimmy Carter passed a law that basically you had a 13% interest rate and maybe nine and a half cost of living. And they allowed 8%. But we're at 2.1% right now cost of living and interest rates at three and four. And so why are we paying 8% based on an old law? So the answer is you reduce it and I'm with the governor to have a 2.5% cap on property taxes to have not just seniors but homeowners. How does your experience of living in this district compare you for being our state representative? I believe it's my turn. Certainly having a home grown here in Edgewood District and living in Northside here, the second half of my life with my wife here. I've seen the disparity. I've seen the many things that have changed over time and some of the things that haven't. I've seen where at the beginning there were schools that still exist. Situations where some schools didn't have air-conditioned were, you know, Fox Tech and also the near didn't have air-conditioning. And so I look at the disparities and I believe that in this scenario that we should create a way to bring equality back and bring situations to fairness. I think that's a priority that I represent. Thank you. I won't go into the details that we're already covered earlier with the school board for nine years. I'm on the city council for eight years and all that experience that I gathered from there. But let me talk about what I did in the last couple of years. Once I got off the city council, I got onto a organization called the San Antonio Mobility Coalition. One of the things that we do as a mobility coalition is to try to identify dollars at the state and the federal level to bring to San Antonio to try to go highways and roads and things of that nature improve transportation. I have been doing that for the last couple of years as the Sanco Chairman. And prior to that I was the chairman for an organization called the Metropolitan Planning Organization which basically did the same thing that I did as an elected official. I can tell you that I understand the issues in this community, whether it's education, whether it's transportation issues or even job creation over the course of the last 20 years that I worked with AT&T in their marketing division or with actually with the city of San Antonio leading trade delegations around the country trying to recruit businesses to come to San Antonio and get a clear understanding of why we need to have jobs, why we need to have an education system that provides the workforce for those jobs and get those individuals to stay here in San Antonio. I've been quite engaged in that over the course of the last 20 to 30 years and I believe that that's what gives me a unique perspective on what we need here in San Antonio. Thank you. What is your opinion of the recent attempted voter purge by the Texas Secretary of State and Governor Abbott? Voter purging is undemocratic. We should be increasing the opportunity to have people come vote. I wanted to hold them accountable for identifying themselves and having the correct identification in the process but in today's role, in 2019, we're actually dissuading people from coming to vote completely undemocratic and that is not what our forefathers put into the Constitution. We should be opening up the opportunity for more folks to vote but what's really more important than opening up the processes is that we need to educate from a policy perspective for citizens. I've been block walking for the last month and a half since the day that this race began and a lot of people say, well, there's a lot of voter apathy out there. There isn't voter apathy. People want to know what is going on. I could say I spend an awful lot of time at people's doorsteps not only talking about education but specifically about the programs that they feel need to be addressed in education. People are interested. They're not apathetic. They want to be able to get into a position to have a say. So I would hope that what we would be doing is opening the process up in the way that our democratic society should. Other countries don't. We do. What is your opinion of the recent attempted voter purge by the Texas Secretary of State and Governor Abbott? The biggest difference that I see that the Governor Abbott was making is a clarity between legal voters and illegal voters. And obviously the purging is a clear, clear cut path. And if it's 95,000 or 75,000, in my opinion, this is not about the citizens having the right to vote. This is about illegals taking over the system that was never meant to be until you become a citizen. Okay, here's a different one for you. What is your most embarrassing moment? Only my wife would know that, right? I think we've had embarrassing moments all our lives, right? And whether it's on the ski slope and falling the first time, right? Now they were knowing what to do or just getting it wrong. But I think that we are natural human beings that are going to make mistakes. And obviously I favor with apologetics, it's called, to be able to talk to those that, okay, I did the wrong thing. We can move in the right direction. And then do other things that encourage others to do exactly that, go in the right direction. So I don't have enough time for you to tell you how many things I think are embarrassing. Falling down is a couple of things I wanted to say, but really I've given a little bit of time to think about it, but you were talking about it, Fred. Honestly, I guess as adults, usually when we have an embarrassing moment is when we get called out on something, right? And as adults, we can call each other out all the time. And typically we can argue our position and then we might walk away saying, well, I agree, don't disagree, but we walk off as adults. But whenever a child calls you out, when a child points something out to you that you might have done, said, or pretended or acted like you might believe in, and they question and then they ask you, why did you do that? I have a certain sense like that with my granddaughter. As a matter of fact, we were talking about different issues and I won't go into the actual issues we were talking about. But she said, well, Grandpa, I don't believe that. That's not what I think it really ought to be. And we had a really good discussion. We wound up, I wound up agreeing that she was probably right. I mean, the topic was around divorce and who and how and who should get custody and things of that nature. And of course, the very first thing that a parent will go was, well, divorce is bad things. That shouldn't happen. Everybody should go. But she had a completely different perspective. Unfortunately, she experienced that. And it was interesting because it was rather embarrassing, but it was enlightening as well to know that a child at that age had that depth of consciousness. What are your views on Texas legalizing pot? Texas legalizing pot? Yes. Well, probably the 60s and I am not done in a minute, whether I smoke or inhale. I am going there. You know, from a practical perspective, legalizing pot is becoming more of an acceptable trend, whether it's the medical components of marijuana or all the things that come in. That's the secondary piece of that and that's the revenue stream. I think what's important is for us to take a look at other states like Colorado and a handful of others that have done it. And let me tell you, they haven't done it without a whole lot of consternation. They have suffered greatly because it wasn't implemented correctly. So if it becomes something that sent, that Texas begins to embrace, what we need to do is take a look at all of the other states that have done it, and we're going to do it correctly. We're going to do it for all of the other, quote unquote, vice taxes, right? We're going to go down the gambling issues, things of that nature. There is revenue can be generated by it, but there are also lives that can be broken by it. And I think it's important that we do it in a very cautious and thoughtful way. But I would try to engage in the discussion to try to figure out a positive way forward. My particular belief on a marijuana use is that you allow the door to be cracked open and it begins to go south. So that was my position. And then I had a mother call me and talk to me concerning about their child and cannabis oil. And where it goes wrong is like California that you can walk in and I've been right in front of those stores that you can go in there and get a doctor right there to agree to sign that you medically need marijuana and you're capable of using it. And I just frown on allowing that direction for our country. I wouldn't do it. And there's several questions here, immigration questions that I'm going to just combine here. How would you address the issue of reuniting children separated by ICE with their parents? How do you feel about DACA and SB4? I'll just combine those. Well, that's six minutes worth right there. Six? Yeah. Particularly speaking on immigration and the separation of children, this question came to us from the Express News and Dylan can vouch for that. But the issue in my mind is what happens to the streets of San Antonio when someone is drunk and driving and reckless and has a child in the back, what do you do? You separate the child and you take him to a secure place. So when you end the arena of perception, that takes you down the road of misunderstanding that the children are being secured, not separated permanently. That's not the case. So the second thing is that you mentioned the second arena which was... Well, DACA. Let's leave it at those two. DACA was created by Obama after having sent 400,000 immigrants back to their country. And then there was pressure to have him support the Latino vote, which basically happened right before the 2012 election and turned it in such a way that you had twice that number, 100,000 that were allowed into a DACA program that allowed them to be back in. So again, if it is going to be something beneficial to Americans for America, I support it, but not any other way. All right. Great. I'll start with DACA. Maybe I'll do that in the time frame here. I started to support the DACA program. When we rolled out DACA at the very beginning, folks that had come here and were in the shadows, coming here for reasons to try to improve their lives, we told them, step up, register, and you'll be fine. And now we're trying to change that. That's not right. The second thing is these individuals that are here are contributing to society by virtue of getting an education and wanting to come into the workforce and keep that skill set that they got here in the United States here to be able to benefit our communities and our countries. I think it's incredibly important that we have a very solid DACA, a clear DACA program that reinforces their ability to come out of the shadows, do what they need to get done and then stay here. Let them be good contributing citizens. I'll quickly talk on the issue of separation of the children. I don't think that there's anybody that can argue that under any circumstance, that's a good scenario to be under. The way we did it there, I certainly understand what you're saying about a child in the backseat of a car. The parent is being less than attentive to that child, but that is not what happened with those children that were crossing that border. They were leaving areas of peril. They were trying to save their children's lives. They weren't putting them in danger. They weren't putting them in peril, but we separated them anyway because of a ridiculous, idiotic policy that was evicted from the top. That is wrong. What is your stance on taking land from Texas through imminent domain to build the wall? Border wall? We said border wall, that changed things. But imminent domain instead of Texas, we all realize, personal property rights are incredibly important and we have to do everything we possibly can to make sure that there's a process that allows landowners to be able to mitigate, to be able to go out and insist that they get due process and they get a fair value for their property. The issue that I have of taking land on the border for the issue of the border wall is not really my thought process. It's really talking to folks like Mayor Signs who's the mayor of Laredo that said, listen, if somebody wants to build something, build it down. Don't build the wall. We don't need to keep folks from crossing over. They're coming over and 18 weavers with the drugs. They're coming over with visas and then over staying their visas. Go fix that. What you need to fix, if you want to spend money and create jobs in Texas, why don't you create a dam that stops the flooding of the Rio Grande through their community. Make sure that lives and cattle and property aren't lost. So if you're going to spend money, spend it where it's needed. We don't need the money being spent the way that it is. He made a point that I would have never thought of sitting here a couple hundred miles away from the border. But indeed, he makes a good point. I think at the end of the day, what we need to be doing is asking individuals that are directly affected what is the best solution forward and don't be making decisions based on, again, hyperbole and sound bites that create anger among the population. We need to start getting along and talking to each other. Sorry about that. Thank you. What is your stance on taking land from Texas through imminent domain to building the border wall? Obviously, there exists a process by which people undergo the whole issue of imminent domain. I don't like it, but sometimes for the sake of the community and a greater good, it needs to be done. But here is the issue that I have with is that the fairness of being paying a property owner what they're doing should be handled correctly. I'm a businessman, so you negotiate and you've got to be happy to where you get to. But this question, I think, is broader when it talks about the border wall. And let me tell you, to me, border wall is about national security. You have issues that drug cartels don't want you to build the wall. Why not? Well, because it may get harder for what it is that they're doing. We have child trafficking that exists and we're denying because we don't want to talk about it. We have other issues where sickness is being allowed and they're coming and basically we're serving the needs and thank God that we can. However, the issue is can others come to this country with the wrong intent and without a border wall, we will suffer. Do you support removing tolls on a road when it is paid for, not refinancing to keep the toll? BBC, you said, do I support paying? Removing tolls on a road when it is paid for. Oh, okay. Obviously, if you pay for it once, you're done. You know, let's not try to reinvent the wheel and come up with another tax for our citizens. Once something is paid for, take it away. We had a tax that was created for the Alamo Dome and obviously we agreed to pay that tax. When it was time, it was removed and so it needs to be removed the minute it gets paid. I think I can speak with some expertise in this area. If you take the word toll away from the dialogue, that 400 word toll, it changes the perspective if you call it a user fee, because that's what it is. In most cases, tolls that are put in place have an alternate route for that individual to be able to drive on. It certainly wouldn't be that case here in San Antonio and we did that by policy. So if you look at it as a user fee, folks that want to use it and get the benefit of having faster, quicker range to get to it then they should be able to do that. The problem with taking away the user fee or the toll around that is what are you going to do on the maintenance side of it? You've got to be able to have a revenue stream to maintain it because what you're creating then is a serious hazard. I mean, many of us are aware of what's happened on Texas 130 and it isn't that old yet. The revenue stream is coming in. It's not coming in at the rate that it needed to and what's suffering is the maintenance on that bill. The safeguards, for example, my understanding is that there's a significant problem with feral hogs coming across. We've got an 85 mile an hour highway that you can zoom along but we haven't put in the right protection to keep the feral hogs from crossing across and we've gotten a handful of fatalities because of that. So if you want to talk about toll roads, really you want them as a user fee. User fees are typical. I think most of us would prefer to pay a user fee to have to pay for something that you wouldn't use at all and so I do believe that tolls have a place. What is your position on the relationship between state and local options? State and local options as it relates to just regular governance. Is that what I'm going to say? I think what it's getting at is the... where the state is taking over some of the... I don't mean that to say I'm biased. I appreciate your being by asking the question. I don't think I need to be biased. I think I could be pretty pointed about what I'm saying. If the question is, and if the question is concerning to be clarified, if the question is should the state be taking over municipal rights? The answer is no. Municipalities have a government that understands what's going on in the community. Whether I was in the school board or whether I was on the city council and I know that Fred also was a candidate in Blockwalk. Those are the people on the front lines that are talking to the folks that know what the problems are. Municipals, municipalities need to have a right to be able to self-government and at the state level, there are some things that should be done at the state level for uniformity sake but it needs to be in concurrence and in conjunction with the municipalities. What is your position on the relationship between state and local options? In my opinion, each has its own function and obviously needs to function independently to give the voice to the constituent to function independently. The issues of the state are bigger, they're larger. You know, you handle the issues of school, you handle the issues of finance over several other huge programs whether it's Medicare, Medicaid, those issues there. But obviously the performance of each one is important that you allow that access to the constituent. That to me is the most important. I realize I never gave you your time for opening statements. You were waiting. So, do you want me to begin? Well, you can do an open slash closed statement. So we get four minutes. I'll give you three minutes. Give me three minutes each for you. Certainly I'm appreciative of the fact that every one of you made it here. It is a good thing that you have individuals that are concerned about their community and obviously I want to thank the League of Women Voters for putting this together and City of Leon Valley for giving us the place to be able to hear I don't know if you paid for it, but certainly that they opened up the door. I will say this that obviously, when you consider running a race for state, it is more about I believe moral character and I think we both are good moral men. But the issues and how we represent those issues obviously are in the minds of those that say, look, I favor this or I favor that and then some of them will disagree. But in America, we have that right to have a difference of opinion. In America, we can have a difference of opinion and still be able to dialogue. In America, we are given rights that other countries don't have as rights, whether it's faith or whether it's being able to choose a profession or being able to do the things that we do in our free time such as art and doing the different things that we do. But I think at the end, it is important, just like you came to date, this is the most important thing that you can do, just listen in on the conversation and be able to say, okay, I favor this and I favor that. And I thank you for that opportunity. I'm sure there will be more opportunity after the meeting to discuss more questions, but thank you very much for being here tonight. I can sing a song for the best three minutes. You only have a minute for me. He may be willing to sing, but don't let me sing. Yeah, you don't let me sing. I actually sang in the church choir a member of Prince of Peace with the members there since we moved into the community back in 1984. And my wife and I were on the choir and they let me come up there, but they wouldn't allow me to plug in my mic. That tells you how bad I am. And I guess as I got closer and closer and deeper and deeper into politics, I guess people wanted to take their mic away from me, too. But you know what? At the end of the day, nobody is here to take anybody's mic away. Nobody is here to tell anybody what you think is wrong. It could be different. It could be a different approach. We may settle up in our own mind differently. But at the end of the day, San Antonians have a unique perspective on what they want. We have done a lot of block walking, a lot of doorknob. You know what I can tell you? I know Fred does it well. I've done it with him. And I know that we go out there and we passionately talk to folks and try to listen to what they want. But what they want is no different than what my wife asks of me, what my kids ask of me. We want things to be affordable. We want things to be available. We'll work for it, but we just need to be affordable and available. And I think we follow that in our governance model. If we go to Austin, or ultimately if anybody is going to Washington and keeps that mindset, it would be a good thing for America, for Texas, for San Antonio. But what's happening today, unfortunately, and it isn't happening here. We hear that. What was happening during the campaigns, we become visceral, we become vile, we become angry with each other, we hate each other, we say bad things about each other, and consequently everyone that supports one candidate or the other then hates each other. If you do that on the campaign trail, how in the world are you going to govern when you have the responsibility of leading this state or this country in the right direction? You can't do that. We may have different principles. We may have varying degrees of separation of those principles. But at the end of the day, we've got to listen to each other. We've got to listen to our neighbors arguing and start listening. You know what? Most of the time, and I say this in joking but true, between my wife and I, which we just celebrated 48 years of marriage last week, and I can tell you that I always like to say that we don't agree on everything all the time, and she goes, oh, you agree with me all the time. Don't you? In the marriage, it's a little different than it is in government. In government we have a process. That process, many of us have fought and died for. I have been, had the honor of serving in the military in your army. My son did as well. I've got a grandson that just graduated from the Navy. And it is generational to want to make sure that the United States has those kinds of principles that allows people to say, just give me a hand up. I don't need a hand up. Just give me a hand up. I'm hurt and can you help me? We listen to those folks. They're going to be on all sides of the aisle. And we actually reach out to them and they are going to be better. I promise to do that. I promise to take that as my mindset. If I'm fortunate enough, I would ask that I would ask for your support. Thank you. I believe we, thank you for coming here tonight. We have a half an hour meet and greet where you can talk to the candidates all you want. Hopefully they'll answer you. I'm sure they will. We can do it right here in this room. There's some campaign material out there and of course some league material too. We always have that around. So please take advantage of this next half hour and please go out and vote. Thank you.