 NATO summit in Brussels. Menonchon are against the European Union, want to protect French workers and industry, and propose billions in new public spending. Independent Emmanuel Macron says he wants to make France a thriving country for business and innovation, but he's never run for public office. Mainstream conservative François Fillon says he's the only candidate with real governing experience, but the former prime minister is also under investigation for embezzlement. Faced with such choices, polls show one-fourth of voters say they may not cast a ballot at all. Eleanor Beardsley in Pure News, Paris. Thousands of auto parts workers in Venezuela stand to be adversely affected by the government's decision to seize General Motors' only factory in the Latin American country. As a result of the Maduro administration's decision, which GM calls illegal, the automaker says it will halt its operations in Venezuela. GM alleges the government has also taken hold of its vehicles and other assets at the plant. The Venezuelan government under President Nicolás Maduro continues to be the target of protesters, many of whom were expected to take to the streets today. You're listening to NPR News. With news from across Texas, I'm Rachel Ozier Lindley for the Texas Standard. Senator Bernie Sanders is in Texas today. He and National Democratic Party leaders are holding a public rally this hour in Grand Prairie outside of Dallas. The visit's part of a tour of Republican states to try to unite Democrats and others in opposition to President Donald Trump. Sanders and Democratic National Chairman Tom Perez are expected to talk about the minimum wage, immigration, tax reform, and equal pay for women. Texas could follow North Carolina as the only states with so-called bathroom bills. Debate on the Texas Houses version went into the early hours this morning. Houston Public Media's Andrew Schneider has more on the House bill. It would roll back local ordinances allowing transgender individuals to use the facilities of the gender with which they identify. But the bill wouldn't require public schools or universities to limit bathroom use to the gender on people's birth certificates, as required by the Senate version. That was Andrew Schneider in Houston. Opponents testified through the night against the measure and said it was discriminatory. No vote was taken. A bill that would weaken Texas's top 10% rule was approved by a Texas Senate committee yesterday. That 20-year-old policy grants high school students and the top 10% of their graduating class automatic admission into state universities. The bill would let universities put a cap on the number of top 10%ers they admit. With your state news headlines, I'm Rachel Ozier-Lindley. Support for NPR comes from the financial services firm of Raymond James, offering personalized wealth management advice and banking and capital markets expertise, along with a legacy of putting clients' financial well-being first. Learn more at raymondjames.com. This is Texas Public Radio 89.1 FM, a debate with front-running candidates for San Antonio Mayor. The candidate elected on San Antonio Mayor on May 6th will face some big challenges. Public safety, planning for a million new residents who will move here in the next 20 years, finding solutions through growing traffic gridlock, ensuring that middle and low income can find affordable housing, and bringing jobs to San Antonio. I'm Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies. During the next hour, we're going to hear from three candidates for Mayor who want your vote. The current Mayor, Ivy Taylor, Manuel Medina, a businessman who is head of the Bayer County Democratic Party, and the San Antonio Council Member, Ron Nuremberg. You can also watch this with a live video stream of the debate on our website at tpr.org. Now, there are 14 candidates on the ballot for San Antonio Mayor. Texas Public Radio's news director Shelly Koffler is in the studio to participate in the debate and explain why these three candidates were invited. That's correct, Dave. There are 14 candidates on the ballot, and Texas Public Radio has a debate policy. We attempted to contact all 14 of those campaigns and the candidates, and we ask for a variety of information that would indicate whether these candidates are credibly and vigorously trying to pursue the Office of Mayor. What we determined is that there are three candidates who are doing that, and they're with us here today. We have posted our debate policy at tpr.org for anyone who is interested in knowing more. So, let's get started with our discussion. Each candidate gets 30 seconds to answer. We'll rotate the answering order. We drew names to determine who goes first, and Ron Nuremberg will take the first question, and it comes from Shelly. Thank you once again for all of you coming to join us today for this very important debate. We want to start our conversation out by talking about an extremely important issue, and that is public safety. So, Councilman Nuremberg first. In January, the San Antonio homicide rate hit a 21-year high, and at the same time, the police department tells us it has 240 officer vacancies, more than the association can remember having in the past two decades. So, I'm wondering, why do we have so many unfilled officer vacancies, and what is your plan for filling those positions quickly? Well, thank you for having me, Shelly, and Dave. Thank you for those tuning in. My name is Ron Nuremberg, and I appreciate you paying attention and voting in this mayoral election. Public safety is extremely important that we fill those vacancies. We unfortunately have a challenge doing that because we still have a structurally unbalanced contract. So, not only is it important that we fill those vacancies, but we also have to begin to add uniform positions to the public safety departments so that we can begin to right-size the departments as our city grows. We'll be adding a million-and-a-half people to our community in the next three decades. To fill those vacancies, we're going to have to make some tough policy decisions on where to cut back because currently, again, we are spending more than the council policy direction was to the mayor in getting us a balanced contract. Mr. Medina, same question. We have these vacancies, a high homicide rate. What do we do about filling them? Well, first of all, we have to understand the problem was created because the mayor canceled three cadet classes. And as a result, we have 240 officers short in the field. And you put that into context. We only have a little bit over 2,000 officers. That's less than 10% of the officers that we need to have in the field. The first thing we need to do is elect a new mayor that will make public safety a priority. The second is we need a new city manager because these 226 police officers are actually in the budget. But the city manager decided, along with the mayor, not to hire them so that at the end of the year, they could take those savings and put them to six-figure salaries and pet projects. Mayor Taylor, can you talk to us a little bit about how you would fill those vacancies and feel free to respond to Mr. Medina? Sure. We are already focused on filling those vacancies. We have several cadet classes planned for this year, and we've already graduated some classes this year. In addition to that, we're looking at how we can incentivize people applying to be on the police force. You ask kind of what are the reasons for the vacancies. There are a number of reasons. Everything from retirement to the fact that policing is not probably the most popular career path right now. So we are being creative in providing incentives to try and encourage people. In the long term, we also need to try to groom more of our young people here in San Antonio to consider that to be an attractive career. Thank you. All right, so I get to ask the next question, and it's going to be termed. Medina goes first. According to an audit given to the city council in January, one in five 911 calls have been dropped. We've heard promises from the police chief, Wayne McManus, that that would be dealt with. But given that this is a major public safety issue, mayor and council member would like to hear what follow-ups you have initiated to get updates and address this serious problem. And Chairman Medina, what do you think ought to be done to address this? Well, I've made this a campaign issue. The number of cadet classes that were canceled, and as a result we have 240 officers less on the street. I made an issue that 20% of our 911 call center calls are not being answered. That's because they've cut the budget and they don't have enough people answering calls. Just imagine in your moment of emergency that no one answers. Additionally, this has led to the longest response times in the last 16 years because we don't have enough police officers and we don't have enough ambulances. But yes, we have $15 million for a land bridge at Harberger Park. Okay, so let's go to Mayor Taylor to get your response. Yes, we took very seriously the results of that audit and as a result we've undertaken a variety of actions and most important of which is hiring additional staff so that we could improve our call rate at the 911 center. Since you're not only taking the fraction of the time allotted, I'm going to ask what have you done to have you gotten additional reports? Have you asked the Chief to come back to you? What's going on here? We outlined a plan of action in order to address all the items that were included in the audit and we've been steadily taking away at each one of those, the most important of which was to ensure that we had additional staff to be able to adequately manage the volume of calls. All right, thank you, Mayor. And so Councilman Nuremberg. Well, this is the untenable situation that the mayors put us in and with an unstructured or structurally unbalanced contract. We identified the shortfall through an audit process. During the mid-year budget adjustment last year we added positions, but we're still well short of our goal for the dispatch center. And this is not just important because we need more staff to answer calls. We also know the churn rate. People dropping out of that position because of the fact that it's such a stressful job. So we need to make sure that we're actively pursuing balance to that contract now because we know that contract will be up in five years so we begin to staff up not just uniform positions but also all those ancillary public safety positions. Okay, Shelley. And this one goes to Mayor Taylor, I think. I just want to stick with this topic for a minute because I think it's very important. Public safety is one of the most important issues in any community. And my understanding is San Antonio has one of the lowest ratio of officers per capita. Among the 31 cities in Texas it's the lowest and it's one of the lowest in the country. So why aren't we attracting more officers? And why do we have, what I understand to be, almost a 50% dropout rate in our cadet classes? They're not completing successfully the academies. What is wrong here that we cannot be competitive in attracting these officers? Mayor Taylor. Well, as I mentioned earlier, you know, I would argue that if you looked at other police departments around the nation that I'm sure that they're all struggling. It's a very difficult time to attract people to being in policing with many of the concerns that have been going on across the nation. So we have worked very diligently to ensure that we can be creative in trying to attract people and trying to groom people. Actually, just this week, the My Council on Police Community Relations provided a set of recommendations to the City Council's Public Safety Committee included in there were a number of items related to recruitment. And so I'm hoping that the City Council will take action on those in the near future. Some of them, again, are long-term solutions because if someone wants to undertake a career in policing, that's something they're thinking about years in advance. They don't just decide tomorrow to pursue that. So some of it is going to be making planning seeds that we may not harvest for some time in the future. But there are some short-term things that we can do as far as providing incentives and continuing to expedite the training for people who may be already law enforcement in other jurisdictions who may want to move to San Antonio. So we have, on the average, 15 officers per 10,000. Dallas has 27, New York has 41. Mr. Nuremberg, if you could talk to us a little bit about why you think we can't attract or aren't attracting enough officers and what you would do about it. Well, the fact of the matter is that point needs to be underscored. We are one of the lowest in the country in terms of officers per capita. This is an extraordinary challenge for our community considering the fact that we still, again, I can't emphasize enough, are structurally imbalanced. This not having enough officers in a department as our city is expected to double in population in the next 30 years is a challenge not just for public safety because we are managing from crisis to crisis and moving resources around. It's also a challenge to officer safety. And that, to me, is an issue with recruitment. We have to make sure that officers know when they come and work for the San Antonio Police Department they are working in a safe environment, that they have the adequate number of colleagues that are going to help with patrols, that their ground to cover in their service areas are not extraordinarily large. We know we are a sprawling city as well. So having fewer officers per capita also means that the officers on patrol are having to drive really fast in between calls much farther than other cities. One of my cousins is a police officer in Massachusetts and he tells me that they recruit from the neighborhoods they patrol. It's a crime prevention measure. It's also something that allows people to aspire to public safety careers. I think we need to work with schools. I think we need to work with other organizations and have children in our community grow up aspiring to be public safety officers just like we remember when we were kids. Mr. Medina, what would you do? How would you bring officers to the community? Well, certainly, I'd like to talk a little bit about just in general the perception why police officers and why it's so hard to recruit people to San Antonio is because this mayor has been playing politics with our public safety. When we were in negotiations for a new police contract instead of sitting down and negotiating good face, she took to the media and cast police officers as public enemy number one. As a result, people interested in this field see San Antonio the place where they're not necessarily welcome and that they don't have the mayor's support. That's certainly one thing. Additionally, there's a reason why police officers gave this police chief and this mayor a vote of no confidence because of the manpower issues, the morale issues, the mandatory overtime issues that have yet to be addressed. People applying for a job see this and they're taking that as this is not a place, a work environment that I can thrive. When it comes to making up the officers, remember, we don't only need to make up the 226 or the 240. It's debated how many. But remember, we're a growing city and a growing population and a lot of the officers are retiring. So we not only need to make up what we don't have today, but we need to get more. So that's going to require us working with our Alamo Area Council of Governments and other installations regionally to recruit and train in parallel a good number of officers. But what we cannot do is lower the standards as this mayor has tried to do to improve recruitment. I have the opportunity on that. I just wanted to clarify that several of the things that Mr. Medina stated are inaccurate. And I certainly believe that I played a key role in getting us to the point where we were able to negotiate a contract with the police officers that allowed us to provide them with wages that are fair as well as an excellent health care package. And I certainly cannot contemplate how he would think we'd be able to recruit officers if we were still in a phase of debating those points. Okay. All right. So on to the next question, but I do want to remind our listeners that this is Texas Public Radio 89.1 FM. We're having a debate, a forum with three front-running candidates for mayor. We're joined by incumbent mayor Ivy Taylor and Roman Medina. He's the chairman of the Bayer County Democratic Party and San Antonio Councilmember Ron Nurenberg. And this question goes to Ron Nurenberg. So questions about the future of San Antonio City Manager Cheryl Scully have become part of this campaign. You've already heard that so far this afternoon. Maybe this could even be seen as a referendum on her future. Can you talk about your relationship with City Manager Scully and where you are on keeping her as city manager? Ron. Well, I would describe it as one of professional respect. I think, you know, we have a city of two, our city budget is two and a half billion dollars. We have 11,000 city employees. We're the seventh largest city in the United States. We need the very best manager that we can find for a council manager form of government. I don't want San Antonio to take a back seat with regard to the city's top executive because that person is responsible for the strong fiscal management that we are in right now. And we stand alone among big cities in the country with the strength of our financial management. What is the relationship with policymakers? A lot of the vitriol that has been directed toward Cheryl Scully, particularly with regard to the policies around collective bargaining and how it's carried out, ought to be directed toward the policymakers, in particular the mayor. It's very important that we respect our lanes and that we have with a strong city manager. We also have strong policymakers who are going to be aggressive about the policies that reflect our community, and I think that's where our leadership has been lacking. And so I want to make sure that, again, San Antonians can be confident that we have a strong city manager. I think we do have that, but we should not be forcing our city manager out of the door when it's really the referendum on the mayor, and we need a new mayor. And Manuel Medina. Yes, I've been very clear from the very beginning. May 6th, new mayor. May 7th, new city manager. And as a result, I received a barrage of criticism and attacks by the Express News and the Chamber of Commerce. And let me tell you, I'm not alone in my feelings. There's a number of issues with the city manager that arise my position. The first, yes, it's her pay, that she makes more money than the president of the United States and the governor of Texas combined. But putting aside the pay, it's her politics. It's her job to be at the city directing staff and departments. It's not her job to be on the street holding rallies, microphone in hand, well, pushing a political agenda. That's not her job. Additionally, she's accumulated too much power. She's the only one on council that can get six votes. And we have a former government here in the city of San Antonio that puts the mayor, the city council, on the same level as the city manager. But we have a disbalance. Right now, the city manager has too much power. And just like we talk about term limits for elect officials, maybe we ought to talk about term limits for city managers. Well, it's time to add to a follow-up with you. So what about Robert Puente or Paula Gold Williams? Do you feel the same with them? Well, Paula Gold Williams just came into her leadership role just recently. Robert Puente, he's been there a little bit longer. But right now, I think in the community, there's a real sentiment that the city manager has accumulated too much power at City Hall. Okay, Mayor Taylor. Okay. Well, I certainly have a good working relationship with our city manager. I appreciate the strengths that she brings to the job she's delivered for our citizens as far as the tight fiscal management that's allowed us to obtain AAA bond ratings, as well as her management of capital projects that allowed us to execute those bond programs successfully on time and on budget. I have worked really hard to ensure that we are communicating with the manager on what our concerns are as a council. That's why I push to actually have performance metrics in place. And we provided her a review where we specifically explained to her what some of the strengths were and where there were some areas where improvement was needed. I have to differ with Councilman Nuremberg and his assessment because I know there have been policy issues where the manager wanted to go in one direction, but as mayor, it was my responsibility to ensure that we went in the direction that was in the best interest of the community and the will of the council. The police contract is an example. Everyone may not be aware of those disputes because I believe we have a professional relationship and we have an obligation to inspire that confidence in the community. But I have provided the leadership that's necessary in order to ensure that everyone is acting within their roles within our form of government. Shirley Coffler. This is for Mayor Taylor. I want to shift gears now and talk a little bit about transportation, something that most of you, I think, have identified as your top priority or one of your top priorities. When San Antonio citizens were asked how they wanted to spend their transportation dollars, this was for SA Tomorrow, almost an equal number said they wanted to spend the largest amount for roads and light rail. It was a very close near-tie there. Three years ago, the city pulled the plug on a downtown rail project known as Streetcar and Mayor. I think you were part of that. Would you be the mayor now that goes to the voters, goes back to the voters, with a plan for a rail system that's a city-wide rail system and if so, would it be any different than Streetcar? I do not have a plan to go to the citizens right now with a city-wide rail system, though I recognize that that is a strategy that's outlined in the plan that we have related to transportation. I believe that there's a lot of work we need to do in order to be able to gain the support of the citizenry. And I also believe that we need to do some other things as far as implementation of the growth plan SA Tomorrow. The plan includes 13 regional centers where there live workplace centers. And I believe that we need to drive more growth and development into those areas and that would make it more feasible to connect those areas via rail. I think if we went with a rail plan right now, it'd be too hard to identify a beginning route or routes that a large number of people would see as a real transportation solution. And that was part of the challenge with Streetcar. People didn't see it as a real transportation solution. What I would be interested in pursuing immediately, which I think is a real transportation solution, is rail from San Antonio to Austin. And we've already had conversations with Amtrak and we're doing a corridor study on I-35. I believe most folks would see that as something that would provide relief. Cities like Dallas and Houston say, Mr. Nuremberg, Councilman Nuremberg, that it takes maybe 20 years from the time you start a rail system until you actually have one that's pretty vibrant. Would you be the mayor that went to the voters in the near future for a citywide rail system? Yes, I would. And this is the length of time that it takes to implement mass transit. It points out that Mayor Taylor is completely oblivious to the reality that's coming to us with regard to traffic. We know that we're adding 150 vehicles to our roads every single day. We can barely keep up with capacity as it is and the capacity that we add simply keeps up with the gridlock that we're already experiencing. So our economy will come to a grinding halt. Our quality of life will suffer if we continue to do the same things over and over again. And I have to differ with one thing you said, Shelly, which is that streetcar is not rail. Streetcar was a downtown amenity that didn't address the big comprehensive challenges that we're experiencing. In fact, I did not support streetcar while Mayor Taylor was voting twice for it. The challenge with transportation is that we have to think big. We have to go to the voters with a desire that they already have an express to us through SA Tomorrow, which is that they want comprehensive relief for transportation congestion throughout the city. And our children, our grandchildren, we as adults cannot wait any longer. We have to build capacity where we can. We have to extend our other modes of transportation, but we have to get started with putting in front of voters a comprehensive plan for mass transit system in San Antonio, and that takes leadership. Okay, I'm going to step in because, I mean, I want to give a chance, Mayor, to have a rebuttal. So, Mayor, are you oblivious to transportation issues? Well, what I would say is that the councilman... And then, Madina, you're going to get your 90 seconds right after that, okay? I believe the councilman is oblivious to the fact that at least half of our population has said we don't want rail. We don't even want to talk about rail. So, I don't believe that just charging ahead because he thinks it's the right thing to do is leadership. Yes, we do have to have a community conversation. If that's the direction we're going to go, we have to build support. So, as a pragmatic person, I believe it makes more sense for us to get the community to the point, as far as our physical development, where rail would actually be more efficient before we would go to folks and ask them. All right, that's a rebuttal. So, we're getting off track here, off rail. And so, this is why... And then, well, Madina has 90 seconds to... Can you say the question just a little, though, too, because the mayor said a lot of people don't want rail, but the SA Tomorrow Plan indicates they would like to spend money on it. Citywide rail plan, good idea, bad idea, how soon? Well, I'm opposed to it. I've been saying from the very beginning that I will be the transportation mayor. And I have a transportation plan. But it does not include the $5 billion that this mayor has endorsed in her endorsements of BIA's 2040 rail project that's going to cost $5 billion. So, she says she's anti-rail. She says she's for rail. I don't exactly know what her position is because she has embraced BIA's 2040 vision that invests $5 billion in rail in the city of San Antonio. Me personally, what are my ideas? I'm going to take the top 50 quarters in the city and improve drive times by 10% in my first six months in office. We're going to invest in BIA ridership by expanding bus routes and bus frequency. We're additionally going to incentivize local businesses so more of their employees can work from home or go to work or get out of work off-peak our traffic. And yes, I believe in road expansion. We need to expand our current road capacity. We need to fix streets. And additionally, we need to look at double-deckers here in San Antonio if need be. And yes, I do support commuter train, bullet train, light rail, whatever you want to call it from San Antonio to Austin. And I've said from the very beginning once we get done with that, we're going to build from San Antonio to Monterey. Dave, I see everybody's hands up here. The mayor wanted 30 seconds. And I think Mr. Nuremberg, Councilman Nuremberg too, did you want to respond, mayor? Well, I just wanted to clarify in response to what Mr. Medina just said. I have never said that I'm anti-rail. What I've said is that it would not be the priority for me as mayor to pursue that immediately. I believe that there could be a point in time where this community would be ready to take that on. But right now I believe that there are other transportation solutions that we can pursue. Here's the challenge. The mayor has said that she's not anti-rail, but the mayor has no plan. What part of voter approved do we not understand? If we want to estimate what the public wants, we go out and talk to them. That's what the 18 months of me chairing SA Tomorrow was all about. And this is what they said. They wanted comprehensive transportation reform. We need to get it to the voters so they can approve it. And I guess out of fairness, we should give Manuel Medina another 30 seconds. You want another crack at it? Well, certainly, I mean, we've got to be clear in our positions. And there's a number of areas where the mayor has muddled her position. Does she support rail or does she not support rail? Same thing, does she support toll roads or does she not support toll roads? Because today we hear one thing at the 33 other base that we've been, we've heard something else. So I would just appreciate if the mayor would be clear on those two positions. Does she support toll roads or not? Does she support rail or not? Okay, we'll get into all those issues. And let's go to another non-controversial, non-excitable issue, which is the city bond. So as voters go to the polls to elect the mayor and city council members are also going to be asked to decide on an $850 million bond package. 70% of the bond dollars we know are going to streets in drainage and infrastructure development. But can each of you address the bond and highlight some items that you think may or may not deserve a yes vote? And the first person to answer this would be Chairman Medina. Thank you. Well, I support streets and sidewalks. Drainage and flood control are parks and libraries. And I believe this bond includes $650 million in basic needs to address what I just said. But it also includes $200 million that I believe we're giving away to the mayor's friends. Do we really need to fund $50 million to beautify Broadway? Or $25 million to beautify Hemisphere Park so Zachary Corporation can build a hotel. $15 million for a land bridge at Harberger Park. $10 million at UTSA for a gem. Take a step back. UTSA is part of the UT system, one of the wealthiest universities in the world, and we're going to give them $10 million. And it's because they have a paid lobbyist. Because Harberger Park has a paid lobbyist, because Zachary has a paid lobbyist, and because Broadway has a paid lobbyist. So I do not agree with giving away $200 million to get what we deserve, the $650 million in basic needs. So what I would prefer is that we trim those $200 million in special interest projects and actually just we're allowed to vote on the $650 million that are basic needs. Because at the end of the day, this just epitomizes what I've been saying from the very beginning, that candidates get their contributions, special interest gets their special favors, and taxpayers get stuck with the bill. Okay, Councilman Nuremberg, what are your thoughts on the bond? I particularly want to hear your thoughts about the land bridge and about UTSA. Sure. Well, a lot of the facts on those two projects that were presented were just false from Mr. Medina. But I will say this, we have an extraordinary opportunity to keep up with infrastructure, 70% of the $850 million bond program is going into the very basics of our city to keep up with the growing demands, street sidewalks, drainage, all the not sexy stuff that we need and requires a city. In addition to that, we had over 100 citizens come together, citizen volunteers to come up with their list of priorities. I could point out 100 different people in this community and they would have 100 different lists of projects that they would demand. But we work together as a community, that's how we prioritize in a city of our size. Now I will say, we also require us, our children and our grandchildren, require us to build a city that's not just sidewalks and streets and drainage. We also need to have strong libraries, we need to have strong parks, we need to have facilities that we can use that will be important assets throughout our community and that's what these other programs do. The Hardburger Park Land Bridge was a priority for citizens in District 8 and 9 knowing that it is a city wide park. They were identified early on, year ago as priorities and it will add green space to one of the best park systems growing in Texas and I think that's an extraordinary opportunity for us. In addition to that, UTSA is a growing campus and as the city of San Antonio goes or as UTSA goes, so goes San Antonio and I want to make sure that in our opportunity as a city to advance the master plan there we will continue to do that as a city-wide priority. Mayor Taylor, do you really have friends that you're giving all these things away to? I don't know who all these friends are that Mr. Medina keeps referring to. These are imaginary friends that he has thought up. The bond program is an extraordinary opportunity for the city of San Antonio to make a wonderful level of investment into our infrastructure to address the basic issues that people talk to us about all the time improving our streets providing sidewalks our kids can walk to school providing drainage projects so that we can pull homes out of the floodplains enhancing our cultural and educational facilities like libraries and parks. So it touches every single part of San Antonio. We do not have to raise the property tax rate and association with this. This list of projects was vetted by over 150 community volunteers so I believe the entire bond package every proposition is worthy of the support of San Antonio's voters. Okay, you want a 30-second response? Chairman Medina? Yes, just a couple things the mayor said. She talks about the 150, 60 people that participated in the process. Well, half of them were lobbyists or had direct conflicts of interest. Secondly, the people that have given her money all anyone needs to do going on the city's website the contribution and expenditure list of the mayor and there's where you'll see all her friends that ultimately are going to get contracts out of this bond. This $200 million that we're giving away to her friends are an insult to the real needs that we have in the community crumbly streets on the north side sewer problems on the east side flooding on the west side and the lack of basic infrastructure on the south side. That's 30 seconds. I think you really need to respond to the allegation that there is pay to play politics. That's what you're saying, pay to play politics. You know, I think Mr. Medina's whole campaign narrative is an insult to the people of San Antonio. This idea that the 11 council members and mayor that have been duly elected by conscientious voters of San Antonio are somehow just in it for ourselves. We have a group of dedicated public servants down at City Hall and yes, I am counting myself among them. I know that every day I go to City Hall to do what's in the best interest of the community. The only special interest that I have in mind is ensuring that we connect San Antonians to opportunities for prosperity. And to say anything else is just completely false. Okay, and we give Ron a chance to respond to that too because you're included in the allegation of pay to play politics. Well, I can tell you without a doubt that the people appointed to these committees were active citizen volunteers. Many of them had subject area knowledge, which is what we want. We want people in those committees that know what they're talking about. None of them had financial interest in any of these projects and they're all working on public projects that we can benefit from. So I think that speaks for itself. It's a strong bond program worth your vote. Okay, and this is Texas Public Radio. We're having a mayoral debate with three of the front running candidates for mayor asking for your vote. They're joined by current Mayor Ivy Taylor, Manuel Medina, the head of the Bear County Democratic Party and San Antonio City Council member Ron Nuremberg and Shelley Coffler, TPR News Director, has a question for Ron Nuremberg. I want to go back to something that became an issue and that we reported on last year and that is mosquito control and what the city is or is not spending on it. So between 2011 and 2016 in that five-year period, the city cut its mosquito control budget 75%, then last year in the midst of a national panic over mosquito spreading the Zika virus, especially in warm weather climates like our own, the city cut the mosquito control budget another 13%. So what I'm wondering is how will San Antonio prevent an outbreak of mosquito-borne illnesses like Zika or West Nile if we have that problem this year? Last year, you only had one person in the whole city who was licensed to use the applications for insecticide on the ground. Yeah, and it's a huge challenge and that needs to be addressed during the budget cycle so we will continue to... You cut it again. Right, and here's the challenge. I'm very happy that we have a new Metro Health Director in the city of San Antonio. But under the mayor's leadership, we have been attacking and I say we in the royal sense because this is something I don't agree with, policies that have been driven by Metro Health to the point where we have had our Metro Health Department decimated. We have very few people left under the old administration when we had people like Dr. Slanker, Dr. Mangla, who were leading efforts to produce vector control strategies throughout Bear County since they left through high-profile arguments about medical facilities in our community, through high-profile fights about sugary drinks because the policymakers were not strong enough to stand and say, yeah, we actually need an educational campaign just like our doctors are telling us on sugary drinks. We have seen the force of that department leave. I hope we can build that back up, but those folks were the ones who were leading this community's effort to control mosquitoes and to make sure that we are aware of in addressing the issues of outbreaks like Zika. So, Mr. Medina, same question. They've cut this budget way, way, way back. How would you, as mayor, respond or prevent an outbreak of mosquito-borne illness? Well, certainly the Metropolitan Health District is going to be the lead agent on tackling this challenge. But it can't do anything if it doesn't have the appropriate funding as you just mentioned. I mean, the solution, I mean, well, mosquitoes need to pay lobbyists. If you do that, I guarantee you there will be funding or not funding depending on what their position is. So, the mayor was insulted by this insinuation that there's paid to play politics at City Hall. Then I'd like for her to tell me what was the correlation in this VISTA-rich contract? We're going to talk about mosquito control right now. I look forward to talking about VISTA-rich. Do you have a plan for protecting the city? I don't have a plan on how we're going to address mosquitoes. Other than when it comes to the Metropolitan Health District, we'll be taking the lead, and we need to certainly find the appropriate funding to take the appropriate actions when it comes to this issue. Mayor, what was the philosophy behind these cuts at a time when we have these potential outbreaks of mosquito-borne illness? I cannot address that for you. At this time, Shelley, I would like for the staff to determine how we got to that point, and certainly it's something that we need to address during the budget process. But in relation to some of the things that Councilman Nirenberg stated, I certainly have not presided over any concerted effort to diminish the effectiveness of the health department. Some of the staff that he mentioned left as a result of HR issues. So, there are a number of things at play here, but certainly protecting the health and safety of our citizens is our top responsibility. So, during the budget process, we will have to revisit the allocation of resources on this specific issue. Okay, now the question, and since Manuel Medina brought up Vista Ridge, let's talk about Vista Ridge. And this question is for you, Chairman Medina. What are your concerns about Vista Ridge? We're being told that this is a solution for San Antonio's long-term water problems. So, what's wrong with that? We're acknowledging that SAWS has been addressing our long-term water security needs for some time now. And in their game plan, we had the responsible management and pumping of the Edwards Aquifer, which they have done. They've addressed conservation issues, and I believe they could do a little bit more, but they're on the right path. When it comes to water we didn't use, but we're allotted at the Edwards Aquifer. Now we're actually storing it at the Aquifer and Storage Recovery Units. They've invested $493 million in desalination plan, and that was our game plan for the future when it came to water security. But economic interest trumped SAWS long-term water security plans by introducing Vista Ridge, a project that was fast-tracked at City Hall, and from beginning to the end of this contract, the mayor received $18,000. That is pay-to-play. Bottom line is there's candidates got $18,000 in contributions. Special interest got this $3.4 billion pipeline, and taxpayers at the end of the day are going to get the opportunity to pay for it. Mayor Taylor, your response? I'm not sure what the chairman's talking about, but I've not made any decisions on Vista Ridge based on any factor other than our need to secure our water supply for the future. Led the council to unanimous votes on this project. It's been thoroughly vetted. The contract negotiations were open to the public. All the SAWS board meetings are open to the public. We've provided updates on a regular basis on this project, and I am very happy that we're at the point where we have a major new water supply project because that is a goal that this community has had for many years. And then Councilman Nuremberg? I supported a contract in October of 2014 based on four criteria. It was fiscally responsible. It emphasized conservation. We would continue to ramp up conservation. It was regionally responsible. We were addressing issues that the landowners in Burleson County had, and it was transparent. Since that time, all of those criteria have almost universally been ignored, and the changes that have been made to the contract without council consent that we've asked for, changes to come to council, and the mayor has denied that, have called into question whether or not we will actually get water produced when we need it. We have the mayor on the board of SAWS who has most of those conversations in executive session, which are not in public view, have strategically made, lowered the bar for the construction company, for the project company, so that they can reach the bar. So our standards for construction have been lowered, and the process for constructing the pipeline has been accelerated, and we have less surety that we're actually going to get that water, and I will not be cavalier about this subject because the top economic concern for the state of Texas, for our city, for really cities around the world, is water security. We have to make sure we have water for the future, and this project and the mayor's leadership, we don't have that confidence anymore. Okay, just to recap, to make sure we got this right, Chairman Medina, you're against Vista Ridge, and you say you're going to, you're going to, 86, you're done with it, right? Mayor Taylor, you're on board with Vista Ridge, you think this is the way for the future. Ron Nuremberg, you say you need to re-evaluate and make sure this is working for San Antonio right now. I don't need to re-evaluate it. I need to use my position as a member of the SAWS board to make them address the inadequacies of the contract that have happened under Mayor Taylor. And if they don't, then you're done with it? Yes. Okay, this wanted to be clear. I want to go back to transportation, a different type of transportation that's air travel, our airport. Last fall, the city managed airport reported a 21% drop in passengers flying between the Alamos City and Mexico, and it followed the loss of some non-stop flights that moved to Houston. The city's been working to attract more non-stops. I know the mayor and many other city officials have been working on that, to major destinations like Boston and Washington, D.C. One thing some other cities are doing is financially guaranteeing airlines they will fill the seats. In other words, coming up with city money and saying to the airlines, okay, if we have empty seats on these planes, we're going to take care of it and pay you airlines to ensure that you keep the non-stops here in our cities. So I want to know, should San Antonio do that? Try to attract more non-stops by agreeing to pay for seats when they aren't filled. And Mayor Taylor, let me start with you. Yes, the airport certainly is critical as far as our community's future growth, and we need to determine how we can attract more non-stop flights. We've had a task force that's been focused on that, and we have had some success as far as attracting new non-stop flights. However, we're reconfiguring that particular task force, and we hired a new consultant to take a fresh look and new approach to trying to recruit additional airlines. I think there are a number of things at play. I can't say for sure that that is the answer as far as providing the incentives. I know that part of the challenge for us is that a lot of our travel here is leisure travel, and we need to have more business travel in order to be able to guarantee many of those seats. So it's a larger conversation that we need to have with the business leaders here in our community. Many of them are engaged in this task force, and we are looking to this new consultant to provide us some insights, even as the airlines are changing to adapt to, of course, their business needs. So should the city incentivize it? Should you come up with some money to guarantee full seats? Well, I said I was not sure that that was the correct solution. I think it needs more analysis before I just say that we should just write the check because we need to figure out what's going to make the most sense for our tax dollars, and we'll actually result at the end of the day in better service at the airport. Councilman Nuremberg. Well, reconfiguring and hiring new consultants is just repackaging an Air Incentives program that we currently have right now. Whether we subsidize it through the seats or we subsidize it just as a handout to airlines to bring flights here, it's the same thing. We're subsidizing direct flights. And that is because our airport has become a receptacle for all the other excuses that we have as a city, for low college enrollment and low high school attainment to issues with creating the level of jobs for the business market to demand those flights. So I think we need to be focused on economic development in San Antonio. I think we need to be working with airlines to build a hub here in San Antonio so that's not just the destination flights but we're also getting the connecting flights. I think there's a number of ways to actually reconfigure our strategy on air travel but we have to focus on the things that are going to make a market here so that direct flights will come. Mr. Medina. My answer is yes. I mean Austin took the lead on this and that's how they became more competitive than we did. They incentivized their flights. Correct. I mean they got together with local companies, they worked with the airlines and flights that they could subsidize that would make sense that increase in ridership, they would end up being self-sufficient in a period of time. So yes, I support that because our airport right now is the right size, the runway is the correct length and we're at below capacity. There's nothing wrong with the airport at this moment but instead of addressing the issue head on the mayor wants more plans more consultants and she's already come out in support of a regional airport that I really think is a bad idea. We should invest in our local airport. You mentioned the 21% drop in flights to Mexico specifically because of southwest. I don't think the mayor found out till it was too late. The airport has not been a priority for her. I don't know exactly what her plan has been over the last few years when it comes to the airport but apparently it's been wrong. Mayor, you want 30 seconds? Yeah, I really don't know where Chairman Medina gets a lot of his information from. I've not come out and said I was in favor of any specific strategy related to the airport. I have said we should have a conversation related to the possibility of a regional airport or expanding where we are. I'm not going to sit here and make big promises without having the facts. I think I have a responsibility as a public servant to do my due diligence and have the conversation so that we can make fact based strategic decisions for our community. That's why I'm working with Judge Wolfe to convene an Air Service Task Force which will be making some announcements about that in the near future and maybe a regional airport could be the solution but I believe we need to do a lot more research and have conversations to determine that and I don't think there's anything wrong with working with experts in the field like consultants in this area to determine what's the best use of our taxpayer dollars before we just shoot off and say oh yeah we're going to throw money at this issue. First we need to make sure that that is actually going to get us the outcome that we're seeking for our citizens. Okay so we're at the point in the debate where we would like to hear a one minute sort of closing wrap about your pitch to voters why they should vote for you and why you think that you would be the person to lead San Antonio into further greatness so let's say we're going to we've already agreed on this order beforehand so it will go Mayor Taylor and then Chairman Medina and then Councilman Ron Nuremberg last so one minute per candidate. Well thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit thank you to the listeners for tuning in I'm asking for your vote and the opportunity to continue providing strong leadership for the city of San Antonio. I think if you examine my record you'll find that I've delivered for the citizens of San Antonio on very tough issues everything from breaking through the stalemate with the police union to provide a contract to the Vista Ridge water supply project to ensure we have water to adopting a plan for our community's growth focusing on providing veterans with housing so we can get them off the streets as well as workforce development to ensure we have a pipeline of citizens that are prepared for jobs that are being created every single day. We have a lot of momentum here in San Antonio and we need to have strong leadership in order to continue it and that is why I'm asking for your vote so that I can continue working on ensuring that every single San Antonio is connected to opportunities for prosperity no matter where they live in our city. Okay and now Chairman Manuel Medina. Thank you I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a master's degree in electrical engineering then I returned to San Antonio and got to work for the last 20 years I've managed three successful businesses. As mayor I will be independent of special interest focused on today and bring about cost effective government. The mayor is a good person but we have the differences of opinion on some of the most critical issues that we face today. I support fire and police she wants to balance the budget on their back I support Senate bill two to limit the gross local government well she's against it. I support taxpayers and believe we need to rein in the county appraisal district she says it's not her job. I will challenge every single saw and CPS rate increase because I believe that we already have too many six figure salaries and pet projects at City Hall. She voted for the last seven consecutively. I am opposed to investing five billion dollars in rail here in San Antonio she supports it. I'm opposed to 3.4 billion dollar Vista Ridge pipeline she supports it and I'm opposed to giving away 200 million dollars to her political friends and allies in this state in San Antonio. And finally City Councilman from District 8 Ron Nurenberg thank you for listening my name is Ron Nurenberg I am a proud fire father and a proud husband and for the last four years I've been proud to be your district 8 city councilman. Thank you for tuning in if you're tuning in you're probably stuck in gridlock. I've been very clear about my vision for San Antonio. I want us to have a modern transportation system that gets you out of that traffic. I want sure that you go home to a safe neighborhood on a safe street. I want to make sure that you're listening to public officials who you have trust in because they are expected to live up to the highest standards of integrity and our oversight systems work. At the end of the day, I've been very proud to serve this community and I will continue to be as an independent who answers to you and not to anyone else. My campaign is focused on the strong basic issues that make San Antonio what it is and will help us carry into a future that you and your children can be proud of no matter where you live, no matter what you do, no matter when you got here. Thank you very much. I look forward to earning your support. You've been listening to a debate with three of the front-running candidates for San Antonio Mayor, incumbent Ivy Taylor, Manuel Medina, the businessman and head of the Bayer County Democratic Party, San Antonio Councilman, Ron Nirenberg from District 8. You can also see a replay of this debate on our website at tpr.org. Early voting begins on Monday, election day, along with the one for the bond is on May the 6th. This is Texas Public Radio. This has been The Source on Texas Public Radio. The source is produced by Kim Johnson, Jan Rospiedad and David Martin Davies. Management and oversight provided by news director Shelly Coppler and production assistance is provided by me Ruben Garcia. Support for The Source comes from the contributors to the Community Engagement Fund, including the Gladys and Ralph Lazarus Foundation and the GAC Health Foundation. What does it mean to be a Texan? What challenges face our state? Are the politicians in charge acting in your best interest? These are just some of the questions that drive Texas matters. Every week we look at the news, events and people that make Texas matter. It's your state and you deserve to know from the back streets to the halls of the Capitol. It's on Texas Matters Friday at 12 30 and Sunday night at 9 30 on Texas Public Radio.