118. The Mayor’s Race: Manny Pelaez on Ferocious Advocacy, Economic Growth, and the Future of San Antonio

Bob Rivard [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard. Today, we continue our series of interviews with the leading candidates running for mayor in San Antonio. Remember, early voting gets underway Tuesday and runs through the following Tuesday. Election day is Saturday, May 3. Local elections really matter, so make your vote count. Show up. Our guest today is candidate for mayor Manny Poulais, the District eight City Councilman serving his fourth and last term.

Bob Rivard [00:00:36]:
Manny also is an attorney in private practice, and he's the former chairman of Brook City based board. He also served previously as a trustee on the board of Via Metropolitan Transit. And as he likes to point out, he was the very first employee of Toyota Manufacturing when I came here as their attorney. Manny Pilais, welcome to Big City Small Town.

Manny Pelaez [00:00:57]:
Hola, Bob. It's nice to see you again, man.

Bob Rivard [00:00:59]:
It's good to see you. So we're asking each of the candidates, Manny, on the assumption that these polls show a lot of voter indecision or I don't know who the candidates are. Let's start by sharing your personal story.

Manny Pelaez [00:01:13]:
My parents are from South America. They're immigrants, who escaped South America during the late seventies or early eighties. Colombia. Colombia in particular. And everybody knows what happening down there and how many Americans escaped, or how many Colombians escaped and came here. My dad's a physician, my mom's a clinical psychologist, and they raised my brother, my sister, and I with the expectation that we would be as ferociously grateful of being here and not being there, that they harbored as well, that gratitude, has been beaten into us, if you will, by my mother in particular, who insisted that gratitude is not something that you feel, but it's something you do. Right? And so you all know. My mom is the CEO.

Manny Pelaez [00:02:03]:
Maratha is the CEO of Battered Women and Children's Shelter, and, she has dragged my brother, my sister, and I into service ever since we were little. And so my sister is the immediate past chairwoman for many years of child advocates for San Antonio, and, I am, I don't have hobbies other than, just serving. And this is this is what this is what gets me in the morning, and I go to sleep thinking about how we're gonna serve again tomorrow. I know that sounds kinda cliche, and, and this is what a politician is supposed to say, but, you know, the proof is in the pudding. Right? I've, because we moved around so much as children, my brother and my sister and I really didn't have roots and we never got homesick because we always lived in different cities, Chicago, Tucson, and Wisconsin.

Bob Rivard [00:02:47]:
Oh, I didn't realize that. Your mother's been such a long time and prominent nonprofit leader in the city. I assume that you were raised here.

Manny Pelaez [00:02:55]:
No. I got here first, Trinity University in 1992.

Bob Rivard [00:03:00]:
Okay.

Manny Pelaez [00:03:00]:
And then my parents visited so often that they decided this is where they're gonna live next. And so my brother and my sister followed, and, you know, and then my parents came. So my brother and my sister in high school lived here with me while I was in college, for a little while, but, my parents then finally moved here. And that's when first year, right out of the gate, my mom started working for the battered women and children's shelter. And, now she's been the CEO for more than twenty four years. And, you know, I think that her, my sister, and I have accomplished quite a bit as far as elevating the conversation about, you know, abuse, of women and children. And, I've made that a central theme of my service on city council for eight years. Right? And so I do get heat every once in a while for focusing, you know, people's attention on the shelter programs.

Manny Pelaez [00:03:47]:
And people say, oh, you're just pushing your mom's charity. And I reassure people, my mom wished she didn't have to, you know, run an agency that, provides life saving services. And I wish that one day that charity never existed because we'd worked our way, you know, worked ourselves out of a job. And so unapologetically, I focus on on domestic violence, to the exclusion of a lot of other things sometimes. But as far as I, you know, as me Yeah.

Bob Rivard [00:04:12]:
You're a Trinity grad.

Manny Pelaez [00:04:13]:
I'm a Trinity grad. That's where I'm at.

Bob Rivard [00:04:14]:
Mary's Law School.

Manny Pelaez [00:04:15]:
I met Ron Nirenberg there, went to Saint Mary's Law, left Saint Mary's Law. And my very first big, big, big, you know, accomplishment right out of the gate out of out of law school was I was the very first person Toyota Motor Manufacturing ever hired.

Bob Rivard [00:04:28]:
I remember.

Manny Pelaez [00:04:29]:
And my job was to close on that property, get the keys, the 3,000 acres. And I was I was in the room, right, when it all happened. And it was, it was thrown in the deep end. So I did all the environmental work, all, you know, the infrastructure work, the legal work, the government affairs work, the zoning, the permitting, federal, state, local, you know, work. And, it was an it was quite the education. And because of that really, neat opportunity, Nelson Wolf approached me and said, I'd like for you to serve on the Via board. We got some problems that need solving there, and happy to talk to you about those, throughout the podcast. And then, after that, I was asked by the city to serve on Brook City Basin as the chairman of Brook City Base.

Manny Pelaez [00:05:12]:
We were asked by Cheryl Scully back then, you know, this needs to be a tech park. Right? Former Air Force Base needs to be a tech park, and, I rejected that. Thought that we could be a little bit better than a tech park. And so I hired Leo Gomez and put together a team, that is executed on what is now a live, work, play, Thrive mini city that happens to have a lot of tech on it. Right. But it also has, you know, restaurants and public art and green spaces and manufacturing and pharmaceuticals and a full service hospital. So when people told us, you know, you'll never be able to succeed in developing all these things on the South Side because people on the South Side are poor and they, you know, and they don't have much cash. Leo and I said, Here, hold our beer.

Manny Pelaez [00:05:55]:
Right? Watch us make this happen. And, we worked day and night to make it happen. And, you know, today there's two really cool things happening there. One, there's a full service hospital. And, whereas one like that never existed on the South Side, you can finally have a heart attack or a baby on the South Side without having to drive all the way to District 8, my district on the North Side, in the medical center. And then number two, there's a medical school that is an incarnate word medical school, and the kids who are going there are San Antonians, right, which is really special, because we're we're creating healthcare professionals. San Antonians who are serving San Antonio's health needs, and that's Brooks. Right? And think about what the South Side used to get.

Manny Pelaez [00:06:34]:
The South Side used to be the beneficiary of pick and pull junkyards, pawn shops, liquor stores, gun shops. And now, we've proven through Brooks that there's a lot of gold to be mined in those hills down there. And, now you're seeing everybody rush, you know, to develop out the South Side. And so soon after I assumed the the chairmanship, I also started working on the A and M campus, and I represented this group called Verano Group, and you know them also. And you and I worked on that project. And, what we're accomplishing at Verano still is kind of amazing. It's a little slower, than what was accomplished at Brooks. But they

Bob Rivard [00:07:09]:
they donated the land for Texas A and M San Antonio, the campus.

Manny Pelaez [00:07:13]:
3,000 acres, and, they it was is the entire Verano project, but they donated 700 acres to, to A and M and said we will develop out the, the doughnut, and we're gonna do a Brooks concept here. And so why am I running for mayor? Bob, it's really not that it's it's not that hard to tell, folks the story. First, I believe that if we can do on the South Side what Brooks did, then we can do that for the entire city. Right? And the one thing that we did at Brooks is we set some super high expectations. Failure was not an option and small things were not allowed. And we proved it out, right, that San Antonio can execute on excellence. And then if you set very bold goals and work towards those goals, as opposed to incrementalism, right, and saying, well, we just need to be a little bit better, right, than what we've got, San Antonio can deliver.

Bob Rivard [00:08:06]:
The arrival of, Toyota was a very exciting time, and it was the birth of the advanced manufacturing economy for the city. And we're gonna talk about that more in just a little bit. You are running for mayor.

Manny Pelaez [00:08:18]:
Yeah.

Bob Rivard [00:08:18]:
You're also working as an attorney. Sorta. Sorta? Because I I wonder how would you balance that if if if elected? And and, you know, I looked at your website. You have a lot of clients in a lot of different places. And, can you do both? I mean, obviously, what we pay the mayor and what we pay the council, even with the raise, is is peanuts as far as I'm concerned, and most professionals are concerned. So I certainly understand everybody's, need to often, you know, generate income outside of their city hall check, but I also wonder about, can you do a full time job and be evangelical and representing the city all over?

Manny Pelaez [00:08:56]:
Absolutely, you cannot. Which is why, what we've structured at my law firm is I've got a partner, I've got a group of lawyers, I've got about 15 people who work there. This firm runs without me showing up, and that's how we structured it. And I am, I'm so proud of that team. It's mostly moms who work there. The engine that runs that law firm is, is women. Right? And, my law partner, Marco Flores, has done an excellent job of managing it in in my absence, and his approach to community service is to let me do it. And so he believes that the firm does is a good corporate citizen by having its name partner out there doing corporate citizenship in the form of community service the way I do.

Manny Pelaez [00:09:45]:
And he handles he handles the day to day work. And so it would absolutely not work, right, if I if I was spending half my time worried about a business. And so I I believe the mayor's job needs to be a full time job and, like, the same way with the council job. I've been doing this full time now for a while.

Bob Rivard [00:10:00]:
How would you, how would you be a different mayor or a similar mayor to Ron Nirenberg?

Manny Pelaez [00:10:08]:
Ron, first of all, I'll start because he's gonna listen to this. And, he's my friend, and I love the man. Right? And I I think he's one of the kindest human beings I ever met. Ron started a conversation about compassion eight years ago. Right? And the need for compassion has never been more relevant, acutely necessary, than it is today. Right? And because, you know, right now, meanness and cruelty is what passes for American values. Right? And I think that Ron has has insisted that we lead with compassion before we lead with anything else, right? That's a conversation that I think that needs to be continued. I hear other candidates say, you know, we need to just get back to basics, right? Well, that leaves compassion out, right? And if all we're doing is sidewalks and and street repair, that's not a conversation about the humans that live here, right, and the humans that need, a government that cares about them.

Manny Pelaez [00:11:02]:
There's another, you know, prominent candidate and, you know, the solution to all of society's ills is is economic development and, a great relationship with the governor. Right.

Bob Rivard [00:11:11]:
How do we how do we deal with that? You know, for five legislative sessions now, they've they have been impinging on home rule. And San Antonio suffered some defeats there. Obviously, city versus state. We're not gonna come out on the winning end of a lot of those fights. We now have the governor offering something of a of an olive branch with the cyber command that he made an emergency item, and the house bill is passed on that. But at the same time, they're trying to pass a bill, for example, that would change bond elections from infrastructure development because it would limit their abilities to take on debt.

Manny Pelaez [00:11:50]:
So let me answer your previous question about the difference between Ron and I and marry it to the answer, to the question you just asked me about the government. Mhmm. And to the answer, to the question you just asked me about the government. So Ron and I are very similar in that we believe, you know, in in the moral obligation to make sure that we're compassion. Where he and I differ is that I bring a completely different set of skills. Right? And I come at the problem with, with just a different, approach. The skills that I bring is, first, you know, I was trained as a litigator, right? And my clients pay me to win, and my clients pay me to be ferocious and, and to and not put up with half measures, right? That is something I'm pretty good at it, man, right? I'm not good at much, but I'm really good at winning fights. In eight years, I haven't lost a single fight on the dais, not one, right? But I'm also pretty punchy, right, when I see that people are trying to threaten the well-being of my constituents, trying to threaten and do, a disservice to the institution, right, of city government.

Manny Pelaez [00:12:52]:
The only time you'll ever see me lose my cool on, on the dais is when somebody is bullying somebody else, right? Or being dishonest, and when that dishonesty threatens our ability to deliver excellence. Where Ron and I are different is that Ron is ecumenical and sets a table for everyone. Right? And Ron has this sleepy, cool radio voice. Right? And I don't I don't have those things. Right? I I bring I bring ferocity to the fight. Right? And so how you deal with with Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton, Dan Patrick, Donald Trump, Doge, Elon Musk, Ted Cruz is with with two tools. On the one hand, you bring the other skill set that I have, which is a skill set of negotiation and advocacy, right? I'm a mediator, arbitrator by training, and I make deals, right? That's, and I've got a track record of putting together really great projects and collaborating and bringing consensus together. And if those gentlemen that I just named off want to sit down and have a conversation about helping San Antonio, and if there's people in San Antonio who want to join in that conversation, and if we can all work on what makes us similar as opposed to what and focus on what makes us different, right? Then you will find a friend and a collaborator and a colleague in trying to advance the best interest of the city.

Manny Pelaez [00:14:19]:
However, right, if you are committed to hurting vulnerable people in my city, if you are committed to eroding our ability to deliver essential services, and if you are committed to adding fire to this fire of mistrust for government, right, just for your own self serving, you know, political desires because you think you're winning more likes online if you beat up on government, then you're gonna fight with Manny Pleyes. Right? And you'll meet me, right, in the media. You'll meet me in court. And I think that I think that the May the next mayor needs to be a wartime mayor because these people have promised that their knives are sharpened for us, and they're proving it by cutting us every single day. We are monitoring about 2,000 bills right now. There's eleven, twelve thousand bills that have been filed in this legislative session. I'm the chairman of government relations. My job is to go to Austin and advocate and tell San Antonio's story and make sure nobody messes with, with the success that we've already created, and and nobody messes with our trajectory and the future that we wanna create.

Manny Pelaez [00:15:23]:
My job is also to go twist arms and make it hurt to imperil San Antonio's ability to thrive. And so, like I said, I I bring I bring a different sense of ferocity. And, you know, the editorial board, your friends over at the Express News asked me, they're like, Manny, how do we know that you're not gonna be the combative, Manny Palais? And I was like, oh, no. I'll I'll be combative. I was like, I think you guys are using the wrong word, though. I'll be ferocious in my advocacy for in zeal in protecting San Antonio. And I was like, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Bob Rivard [00:15:51]:
Is this making, is it inevitable that our elections locally, certainly for mayor, become more partisan in nature even though the city council is, by city charter, rather, we're nonpartisan. But the fact of the matter is we now see outside money coming into the race like we've never seen before from partisan organizations and political action committees. And that's something those of you on council are seeing from two of the outside candidates. And Three of them. Well, I'm not sure Beto's money's from the outside, but I would argue with you on that. But the point larger point is that is it us against the Republicans? Is that how you see it in, in Dawson and Washington?

Manny Pelaez [00:16:33]:
One of the beauties of the city charter is that enshrined in the city charter is this prohibition on running partisan races, Right? I love that you will not see r or d behind any of our names on the ballots. That's actually really healthy, that people remember that, you know, there isn't, you know, that Hardbaker Park isn't a Democrat or Republican park. Right? That Confluence Park isn't a deer in our park. That potholes and stray dogs aren't deer are. But you

Bob Rivard [00:16:58]:
don't see partisanship encroaching into the political arena here.

Manny Pelaez [00:17:01]:
But very much so. Right? I mean, you now have Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott's lobbyist running for mayor, right? And wherever he goes, he swears fealty to Greg Abbott, right? And it's not a secret, right? His goal is to return San Antonio to a time where Republican values, and conservative values ran the city. Right? I'll remind you there was once a good government league. Right? The days of the good government league were the, you know, are are viewed with some sense of nostalgia by a certain you know, the the people who donate money to that gentleman's campaign.

Bob Rivard [00:17:37]:
To play the devil's advocate, a lot of people, galvanize around his economic development agenda because they've seen post pandemic more than a 60, I think, is the count companies relocate from principally the West Coast to Texas. We've gotten one or two of those. JCB from England was a huge win for us. Most of the corporate relocations or expansions went to Austin, Dallas, and Houston.

Manny Pelaez [00:18:03]:
Joshua Foer: So that's where I push back on you, right? And so I think that he's doing an excellent job of And I just want to name him, right? Rolando Pablos is doing an excellent job of convincing people that San Antonio sucks. Right? And that it will suck a lot less if he shows up. Right? And brings all the jobs. The reality is that in the last four years, we've created 16,700 really high paying jobs, $6,600,000,000 in capital expenditures. Right? We're the fastest growing economy in all of Texas. And that's because Jenna Saucelo Herrera, her board over at Greater SATX, our local chambers of commerce, the job I do as the chairman of economic development at the city, the job that Leo Gomez does, but Jim Perschbach does, we have worked our asses off at creating a soft landing spot for businesses to expand. And whenever I'm aware of debates and I say 16,700, right, Rolando and his friends swat that away and say, we all know that that's not true. Our gut, it tells you that, you know and I get it.

Manny Pelaez [00:19:09]:
In political campaigns, you pedal bullshit every once in a while, right? But you can certainly debate whether we're succeeding or not, but you can't refute it, right? We're succeeding. Right? And yesterday, Jenna announced that it looks like for 2025, we're gonna add an additional 15,000 jobs. Right? Right now, I'm working on a deal on the South Side, that I think is gonna succeed, and we're gonna be making a major announcement. 500

Bob Rivard [00:19:34]:
Well, go ahead right now, Manny. This is your opportunity.

Manny Pelaez [00:19:36]:
500 new jobs, biotech jobs, starting at around $24.25 bucks an hour. And the people that they want to hire are right out of community colleges and high schools. Right? You don't even need a PhD, right, to work in these sterile environment bio labs. Some pretty amazing technology aimed at diabetes, wound care, burn care. And I'm pretty close to, to making that a reality that we can roll it out. I'm the only council member that I can think of in the history of city council that's actually brought economic development deals to the city, that I go out and get. Right? And so this idea, right, that San Antonio is terrible, and therefore I will come in and save it, is what many candidates peddle, right? And they peddle it in two ways. One, they tell you, we're too fat, we're too lazy, we're too jobless, we're too illiterate, we all have diabetes, we've got a domestic violence problem, and we don't deserve nice things until we fix those, right? And therefore

Bob Rivard [00:20:40]:
Those are real issues. Yeah. Not to not to be, I'm serious about them.

Manny Pelaez [00:20:45]:
But what city doesn't have them. Right? Which city can you point to that is the Shangri law that is devoid of any challenges. Right? Whereas I bring it I bring a different world view to this, which is we are amazing. Right? And we've proven to a lot of different companies that we're amazing, and they come here because we're amazing. And we produce for them, from our colleges and universities, the kind of employees that solve problems and that really care about, you know, the company that, that takes a chance on them, right? And we produce them a lot of pro a lot of profit, right? And we produce a lot of quality of life for for their executives. And yes, what city doesn't have problems? But if, you know, if we all work together as a perfect collective of people focused on solving these problems, we'll we'll get there. Right? The competing worldview is San Antonio sucks and it'll always suck, and therefore, we don't deserve nice things until we stop making it suck, and I will be the one who comes in and makes it not suck anymore. Right? And I'm just sick and tired of elected officials coming in here and trying to convince us, literally convincing us that we're not as good as Austin, we're not as good as Dallas, we're not as good as Houston.

Manny Pelaez [00:21:52]:
I believe that we've got everything we need in order to make those cities green with envy, and how we solve problems, and how we, take care of each other, and how, you know, we, we thrive, right? So And why do I believe that? Because I did it at Brooks, right? Brooks is now one of the most benchmarked, frequently benchmarked communities from other cities on how to do redevelopment of blighted, blighted areas, and there's a reason for that, because we did it right, right? Now, of the 27 candidates, I'm the only one that's worked on, literally worked on from beginning to end, multi billion dollar development projects. I'm the only one that's brought economic development deals to the San Antonio. I'm the only one that has actually got the subject matter expertise and the track record and the only one who's speaking in terms of best. Everybody else is speaking in terms of I wanna be incrementally better, right, and, better than the last election.

Bob Rivard [00:22:46]:
I wanna I wanna jump in and ask you more about the election. You've been on the council for eight years. Why hasn't the council changed the operating rules for getting on the ballot? And now, you talk about something that discourages voter participation. Putting 27 names on a ballot, nearly 20 of them, 19 of them are unknown to people. They're not campaigning vigorously. They're not raising money. They're not capable of anything like mounting yard signs or sending out mailers or showing up at forums and debates. And yet anybody with a hundred bucks can get on the ballot and say they've run for mayor in San Antonio, and voters are gonna go into the polls and look at a computer screen, and that's gonna have 12 names.

Bob Rivard [00:23:29]:
And then the next screen's gonna have 12 names. And then finally, the poor guys that drew the black bean for the last three. I don't know what number you are in that mix, but it seems patently unfair to the serious candidates that are campaigning to run an election like this.

Manny Pelaez [00:23:44]:
I'm less concerned with the well-being of the serious candidates. Right? I'm more concerned with, what is fair and isn't fair to the general populace. And you and I, before the the camera started rolling, were talking about, you know, this era of misinformation and the low informed the the the less informed constituent, right, and the less informed San Antonio. We made a huge mistake in not fixing this because I don't think anybody anticipated this problem. The barrier to entry into a mayoral race is a hundred bucks. Right? It should be $0. However, it should be that that that fee should be replaced with a requirement to show up with a thousand signatures of registered voters. Right? Do the work first.

Manny Pelaez [00:24:20]:
Right? And go talk to your neighbors. And if you can get a thousand of them to sign a petition saying, you know, candidate, you have convinced me that you got some good points. I will back you. That should be the barrier to entry. And by the way, this is not a novel thought. This is what local judges do, in order to get on the ballot. Right? Put in the work. Do a little sweat, little sweating before you are allowed to put your name in the ballot.

Manny Pelaez [00:24:41]:
I think that that's democracy at work. I think that's fair. And it won't deny, people who are short on cash, the opportunity to throw their hat in the ring. But what we've got right now is the height of absurdity.

Bob Rivard [00:24:55]:
Do, do you think the number of people running has caused the the campaign to be more contentious as people try to get the attention of voters? You know, listening to your comments about Rolando, they're they're quite pointed. We had, Melissa, Cabello Habra in here, district six councilwoman. She calls you La Chanca, you know, the cliff

Manny Pelaez [00:25:18]:
flopper. Man. My mom used to throw them, and, you gotta be afraid of La Chanca. I mean, this this

Bob Rivard [00:25:24]:
is a little bit different than past campaigns

Manny Pelaez [00:25:26]:
Yeah. It it

Bob Rivard [00:25:27]:
to this observer.

Manny Pelaez [00:25:29]:
Yeah. Probably. Right? But, also, I think, compared to last campaigns, we're a big city now. Right? We're living in a a time of social media where exchanging insults like Melissa does, you know, passes for their idea of informed speech. She's got a First Amendment right to be an idiot, but I don't have to punch down much more than saying that. I think we can keep this race classy. I've done a pretty excellent job, I believe, at talking about issues, and talking about what separates me from other people. And, but I will tell you, that there are some, there's some problems, right, with some of the candidates.

Manny Pelaez [00:26:11]:
I believe Gina Ortiz Jones, where the hell have you been, Gina? Right? I mean, when there was- She's been a long career

Bob Rivard [00:26:18]:
in Washington.

Manny Pelaez [00:26:19]:
Yeah, great. But when Storm Uri was freezing people and killing people here locally, right? The rest of us were out there handing out wood and blankets and water and food, right? And by the way, this long career in Washington ended, right? And we've had some very serious moments here in San Antonio that required all hands on deck. And you know, I never saw Beto. I never saw Rolando. I never saw Gina out in the neighborhoods. You know, so Johnny come lately is, suddenly, you know, saying, I've got a great idea on how to run San Antonio. Where's the sweat equity? Right? I mean, talk is cheap, right? And don't judge me by my words, right? I mean, if you want to, judge me by my words, judge me by my actions. And judge me by the volunteering that we do on weekend and the trash pickups.

Manny Pelaez [00:27:00]:
I mean, 21 tons of trash is what we've picked up in eight years, me. And my and my team and my volunteers, me. And, you know, filling up a trailer and towing my pickup truck around neighborhoods, dropping off goods for Afghan refugees and the Syrian refugees that live in my district, digging up, myself with my own shovel and my own gloves, digging up, you know, the nasty human filth that we're finding in encampments near schools, and removing hypodermic needles. And so, you know, I appreciate the hundred day plan, or whatever bullshit they have on their website, but, you know, those are cheap, right? Every politician has a hundred day plan. Give me a break, right? Show me you're a San Antonian, and those three aren't, and they're just not, right? And, and I have very little respect for people that are trying to buy the race. That's clear. Yeah. I just, I don't care.

Manny Pelaez [00:27:51]:
And so, here, by the way, I somehow get in trouble with my campaign manager, and then I get in trouble with the Express News, and there's some goofball at the San Antonio Curran that, you know, clutches his pearls every time I say something provocative. And what I've been telling people is, if I'm mayor, go buy yourself a barrel of pearls. You're gonna be clutching them a lot, during because I just have I have no patience for half measures and I have no patience for mealy mouth promises that aren't delivered. And I just don't have patience for, you know, banalities and insipidness. Let's go from politics to some of

Bob Rivard [00:28:24]:
the key programs and issues that are that are in play right now. And I wanna ask you about some of the signature initiatives under mayor Nirenberg and whether you think they should be continued, discontinued, moderated. Let's start with ready to work, which was launched with very, high ambitions. We never were able to meet the number of people in the pipeline or even the hourly wages we hope to achieve, but everybody agrees workforce development is a serious challenge in the city. What would you do with that program if, you were mayor?

Manny Pelaez [00:28:55]:
Where we had found the most success with Ready to Work is by in, by identifying the company who has an internal training program that that provides workers with portable skills, lifetime portable skills and trains them in house. Right? So a standard arrow comes to us and says, we wanna train up, you know, hundreds of employees to get these certifications that are relevant to this industry. Instead of sending you know, instead of you, city bureaucrats training them, please invest in our program and we will train them. That's worked. The second thing that's worked incredibly well is apprenticeships in the trades. And so, you know, getting people to be apprentices in welding, plumbing, you know, electrician work, that has paid off dramatically. Right? And we know now with about a trillion dollars in bipartisan infrastructure act money coming in, MPO money, bond projects, you know, this upcoming, city budget, those jobs are there. And now more than ever, we're needing trades.

Manny Pelaez [00:30:03]:
And so what hasn't worked, to my satisfaction, is just saying, We'll train you on anything you wanna train. Please, you know, here's the website, sign up, and you just gotta put in, you know, six months, a year, two years of training and, you know, and stick with it. And our success is measured with by how many jobs you'll you know, we we manage to help them land and then how long they they stay at the job. It's a very well intentioned program, right? But cities are not job creators, right? Cities are job creation facilitators, right? And what we ought to do is get out of the way of these businesses and help invest in them so that they can be the experts that they already are, which is hiring and training people internally, right? So can you imagine going to Toyota and saying, we will train, you know, all of your engineers or your paint shop guys or your robotics repair guys. That would be that's that's silly. Right? And, yeah, that's what we've been pitching. And the people who work at Ready to Work, they're good people, Bob. They they really are trying to solve this problem.

Manny Pelaez [00:31:11]:
Everybody involved in this is trying to solve the problem, but, I think I think we we need to modify the program to go in the direction that we know works.

Bob Rivard [00:31:19]:
Okay. Let me ask you about the housing bond because voters, supported, the council and mayor Nirenberg and and in 2022, approved a hundred and $50,000,000 housing bond. That was a first. That again is a city not building housing per se, but it seems to be partnering very successfully with private sector entities. And, that seems to be going well. And and I'm making an assumption that if we continue in that direction, the 2027 bond would probably have an even larger housing bond, or I understand city manager Eric Walsh is even considering a city housing bond for the November election. I don't know where that stands. You may know more about that than I do.

Manny Pelaez [00:31:59]:
Joshua Foer: It's too early for us to be designing the housing bond, or for that matter, any bond package. But it it has been a a conversation that needed to happen twenty, thirty years ago that we're having today. And it's okay that it didn't happen twenty, thirty years ago, right? Nobody anticipated we'd be in this crisis, but, we're in this crisis, right? And we have an obligation to solve. I will tell you that Donald Trump is, after his last election, took a victory lap and was bragging that he delivered on the promise of saving suburbs from having to live next to poor people, by not allowing tax credit properties near suburbs, right? And that keeps proud of it, right? And so nobody should be surprised that the federal government is, again, gonna demonstrate a lack of interest in investing in housing, and it's gonna be leaving it up to states and cities. And, you know, we have an obligation to, to look out for the people that are unhoused because when they become unhoused, they cost us a lot more than keeping them housed and providing them, you know, a safe, clean place. And so, I believe in the bond program, I think it was wildly popular. I think San Antonio understands that the investment needs to be made. There's a business case for it.

Manny Pelaez [00:33:18]:
And, you know, I I would advocate for more investment in housing.

Bob Rivard [00:33:23]:
Okay. Let's talk about the airport, Manny. We had, the airport executive director, Jesus Saenz, on the podcast some time ago. And I shared, what I think is widespread concern over the Southwest Airlines lawsuit against the city and and how that looks not only here, but around the state and beyond nationally. Jesus assured us at the time that we were good friends, with Southwest, that it would be resolved, not to worry about it. Don't make a big deal. And two or three days later, both sides said mediation efforts had broken down and the lawsuit was gonna proceed. And we felt like what we had just heard from Jesus was frankly very disingenuous.

Bob Rivard [00:34:04]:
And if anything, it seemed like the standoff has intensified. What would you do about that?

Manny Pelaez [00:34:10]:
I remember when I started this conversation, I told you I was a litigator first. I've litigated bigger cases than this. This is one of those cases that can, should, and will eventually settle.

Bob Rivard [00:34:20]:
What's not- With collateral damage along the way, though.

Manny Pelaez [00:34:23]:
Yeah, that's right. And, I can tell you, having looked at all the underlying documents, I can tell you that, you know, having gone back and analyzed, you know, the city's dealings with Southwest, I really don't see any way of making a case that somehow we were nefariously dishonest and, you know, disingenuous in our dealings with them. The one story that's not getting told about, and it's a boring story, and I'm sorry, I'm going to bore you with a little bit right now. Southwest is going through a civil war on its board, right? So its board chair and other board members have were under attack by an activist investor who is, you know, buying up lots and lots of shares of Southwest, and they put a poison pill in there to keep, you know, this guy from taking over the company. But in the end, he managed to put new board members on this board. And their mission is to create Southwest recreate Southwest into a frontier or Spirit Airlines. They they've declared that Southwest can no longer occupy the space of not being as cheap as those airlines and being cheaper than Delta. Right? They can't they they he doesn't want them to exist in the middle.

Manny Pelaez [00:35:30]:
Right? So what they did is they've they've got a gun to their CEO's head, and his job is is on the chopping block, right, if he doesn't dramatically reduce costs. And so you should know that they haven't just picked a fight with us, but they've also picked a fight with a lot of other airports around the nation comparing, you know, saying, you charge us too much. We need to renegotiate our leases and threatening lawsuits and FAA complaints. And so this comes at around the same time as this, as a civil war on their board. And so I think this is a product of a new day at Southwest Airlines where they're dramatically slashing costs. And here's what they've said. We will never leave San Antonio. We will never leave.

Manny Pelaez [00:36:09]:
Of course, they won't leave San Antonio. Right? We're essential to their success. We're symbiotic. Our success is theirs and theirs is ours. The way I've been I've been framing it and I believe it to be true is that mom and dad are in a fight, but we still have to make breakfast for the kids tomorrow. In this case, it's settled. And I'm not surprised that they sued. I'm not surprised that they went to the FAA.

Manny Pelaez [00:36:27]:
It's a strategy. I think it's a failing strategy, but they're pulling from every lever to try to pressure airports. And so, right now, the legal department for Southwest and the legal department for Austin's airport are engaged in a fight where their horns are locked. And that too will, you know, take its course. And, eventually, everything will settle down, because it has to. Right?

Bob Rivard [00:36:48]:
Okay. Completely different subject. You were newer to the council at the time, But in 2019, we passed the San Antonio Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. It's a plan without metrics or milestones, dates, firm deadlines. Most of us think it's a plan that mostly has just gathered dust on the shelf and that we look at all the, the obvious metrics. Air quality is continuing to decline. Traffic congestions, is getting worse by the year. Asthma in both adults and adolescents is getting worse.

Bob Rivard [00:37:24]:
We, we still have an inadequate public transit system that's underfunded. That's no criticism of the people that have been running it. I just don't think they have the the public funds that they need to really substantially improve mass transit in our city. We've seen the state make reluctant investments in the energy grid even though our our energy utility is strong. I think our water utility is strong, but we've seen the state not do very much on that front. That may be changing this session. So, we also have a lot of people, particularly in the oil and gas industry, that wanna continue to argue that there there are not serious climate change issues. The state is no longer incentivizing renewables the way they are, the oil and gas industry.

Bob Rivard [00:38:11]:
And a lot of people are, I think, still arguing that it's not, you know, human activity that's causing climate change and it doesn't need to be addressed. And against that background, it seems like city government's been frozen. So you went to

Manny Pelaez [00:38:26]:
my firm's law firm my my firm's website, my law firm, you'll notice that the one thing the firm dedicates more attention to than anything else is climate change litigation. We represent people, and companies, and school districts, and governments who have been damaged by megastorms. Right? And the reality is is that megastorms are the new normal. Like I said earlier, you can debate it. You just can't refute it. Right? And if you want proof, right, everybody's premium is going up. It's not going up because climate change isn't happening. And the insurance companies.

Manny Pelaez [00:38:54]:
Insurance companies. The climate change. Right? And car companies will tell you, oh, it's changing. Right? And they they know that they're, you know, significantly responsible for this. At the same time, yesterday or day before yesterday, our the the morons at the legislature passed a bill that makes it harder for us to invest in solar and wind, making it almost impossible impossibly expensive to develop a project that a solar project that is more than 10 megawatts. Right? And all so that they can, you know, demonstrate their fealty to oil companies and coal companies, right? Not because they really care about the cleanliness of water and asthma and all the other things that you mentioned. And so we have some very powerful wins in our face, that challenge everything that a city does to try to be cleaner and healthier, including this, what do you call it, the Death Star Bill, HB 2,127, that was passed in the last legislative session and is stuck in courts, right now, which basically said cities cannot regulate anything that is mentioned in any statute. Right? Like, what? And basically, you know, making cities, large cities, you know, zones of chaos.

Manny Pelaez [00:40:07]:
Right? And, I mean, anarchy. Right? And so we are faced with an onslaught of attacks from Austin and DC, which is why I said earlier we need a wartime mayor. But as as it relates to the climate adaptation change, I remember I was in the room with the CEO of one of our big oil companies here. And he sat me down and he says, Manny, if the climate adaptation plan gets put on, I am taking my company out of San Antonio. I will move to Dallas or Houston. Right? You are gonna ruin the oil and gas business. And I was like, really? Are we? Right? Are are just by by trying to make the water a little cleaner, the air a little cleaner, trying to increase our investment in solar and wind, are we? Really? And so it has been attacked as if it's, you know, this this boogeyman, right, that is, gonna be, wiping out, you know, an entire sector of the economy. And that and that hyper that hyperbole is really quite intentionally, been designed to scare people into staying away from this.

Manny Pelaez [00:41:02]:
We didn't get much help from the Chambers of Commerce. They also, you know, bought into this hyperbolic, you know, fear mongering. But I will challenge you, in in painting the entire effort as, you know, a failed endeavor. We have now invested more in solar than in the history of the city. We're now partnering with energy battery companies that do, you know, energy storage. I'm negotiating right now a deal on the South Side that will include some really, really green energy to power data centers. And a lot of this effort wouldn't have happened without the buy in from the CBS board, SAWS board, and, the city and the county leaning into this climate adaptation plan. So it's not a complete failure.

Manny Pelaez [00:41:46]:
It's certainly imperfect. But the where I where I do think the climate adaptation plan worked is its bold planting of a flag saying, this is the this is our North Star, and we're headed in that direction. Whereas if no goals are set, well, then you never know if if you're if you're succeeding. More metrics were needed in the climate adaptation plan. I get it. You're right. And it's an imperfect plan designed by imperfect people, but it's better than no plan. And one way you guarantee getting nothing is to plan for nothing.

Bob Rivard [00:42:16]:
Will you dust that plan off and take a fresh look at it and

Manny Pelaez [00:42:19]:
I will because there's certain things that have worked. Right? And there's certain things that are just, you know, not going to work because of we live in Texas. Right? And we've got people out there who think that, you know, any mention of wanting cleaner water or cleaner air is of the devil. A train

Bob Rivard [00:42:35]:
to Austin would be nice.

Manny Pelaez [00:42:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, you know, I was asked recently that. What are you gonna do with Austin? You know, will you negotiate with Austin to do a train between Austin and San Antonio? And what I keep telling people is even if Austin said yes, right, and they said we'll pay for all of it. Right? Mhmm. The the challenge isn't getting Austin to agree to it. Right? San Antonio and Austin is just one terminal point and another terminal point.

Manny Pelaez [00:42:59]:
Try to build a train through Seguin, Schertz, right, Kyle, all these other little cities in between that are are so are so committed to, fighting wokeness, fighting, you know, anything that is green. Right? And in, and it's almost a matter of religious faith. Right? That, you know, anything that is green is bad. So that if we propose it, I'm not sure that you're going to win over the leaders of these communities. Andrew Roark You don't believe those communities

Bob Rivard [00:43:30]:
would want some relief of the congestion that's living

Manny Pelaez [00:43:34]:
on 35. Andrew Roark I think some of these communities will. I think others are led with, you know, with with demagogues, who would rather, you know, be, be be allegiance to their to their tribes than actually solve problems. And we we we're seeing that play out everywhere.

Bob Rivard [00:43:50]:
We're running out of time, Manny, but I don't want the session to end without asking you how you, regard at this point in time Project Marble and bringing the Spurs from the East Side to the, back to hemisphere.

Manny Pelaez [00:44:04]:
Woe to any politician who thinks that seeing the Spurs leave San Antonio will have no consequences. When we travel internationally to recruit companies to come here, you know what the CEOs wanna talk about first? Is the Spurs. Probably WEMBE. WEMBE. WEMBE. And is Manu still in town? And, the Spurs are a reputation enhancer that has helped us create, create jobs and investment, right? And the Spurs also help us attract the best of the best doctors to the medical center, you know, the best engineers to Toyota, the best engineers to SEWRI, and, you know, faculty to UTSA. Believe it or not, there is no number you can put to that. Right? And so this dishonest analysis that my friends at the Express News do and, you know, and other when saying there is no economic proof.

Manny Pelaez [00:44:58]:
Right? Economists all say that, you know, stadium deals don't pencil out. Yeah. So long as you dishonestly ignore the intangibles, yeah, sure. Right? And it sells papers and gets clicks, but it's, it's mendacious. Right?

Bob Rivard [00:45:12]:
It would be a sad city the day after the Spurs left. A very different city and a much diminished city, in my opinion.

Manny Pelaez [00:45:18]:
The other thing is is there's this intangible pride in your city. Right? What are we? We're a city that is proud of the Alamo. We're a city that is that I that has an identity with Fiesta. Right, with our zip code. Everybody talks about Puto Two Ten this and 210 that, right? And the Spurs, how many people you see walking around, right, with their Spurs shirt who probably can't afford a single Spurs ticket, and yet they are faithful to their core. It is their identity, right? H E B is thrown in there, also. Right? And so if we were to lose the Spurs, we also take a major gut punch to city pride and morale. That has a value.

Manny Pelaez [00:45:53]:
Right? Lastly, I think that we do need to return downtown to San Antonians. You know, this investment, in tourism, tourism, tourism was has been great for business, but terrible for people enjoying one of their most important assets. And so I think we've done a good job with Hemisphere, the Brisco Museum, you know, and all these new assets downtown, including the baseball stadium. And I think that we can elegantly and and responsibly do a deal for the entirety of Project Marble. I I think Alamodome, needs to be that that pig needs a lot more lipstick on it. Right? I think the convention center, there's no argument to be made for not investing in in the convention center, and making that Eastern part of hemisphere more vibrant. Where I do think the next mayor is gonna have to lean in is in the difficult conversation with the East Side. So the way I've been I I remember it, and you were around too, I was lied to.

Manny Pelaez [00:46:50]:
I was in Trinity University when this was sold to us in February, what, I I forget, twenty seven years ago.

Bob Rivard [00:46:56]:
Early early yeah. Early odds.

Manny Pelaez [00:46:58]:
Yeah. Early odds. And we were lied to. I mean, they did promise us. You know, the San Antonio report used to be a report, but they did a story, right? And they went back and looked at all the things that were being said, and they promised us an economic renaissance on the East Side. They promised us that this would be, you know, a zone of activity and that there would be this hotels and bars and restaurants, etcetera.

Bob Rivard [00:47:19]:
Was that unrealistic from the very beginning, Manny, in what amounts to a light industrial zone where you've got Coca Cola trucks and everything else over there on I 35?

Manny Pelaez [00:47:31]:
Clearly, it was. Right? In hindsight, it was. But if you want, like, proof that they lied to us, on day one, right, the the they put in place a reality that made it impossible for any investment to happen. They sent an army of sheriff's deputies to snarl at you and yell at you and chase you out of that area as soon as the game ends. Right? If the county really wants there to be investment, then you would create some sort of welcoming environment for people to linger, right? And so even if, right, it may not have been the best site, we didn't even give it a chance, right? And think, I mean, you've been to the games, it's miserable. The minute you leave the game, you have a hostile police force out there kicking you out of the zone. If I was trying to create investment and I said, Bob, I know you got a few million dollars. Let's build a little micro, you know, brewery down there, and let's put a little entertainment district with restaurants and coffee shops, And then I took you to have that experience.

Manny Pelaez [00:48:24]:
You say, no way. Are you kidding me? How am I ever supposed to land a customer if they're getting chased out by law enforcement? They lied to us, man. And the the East Side is is has every right to feel lied to. And we need to have a conversation about, you know, the consequences of those lies. And we also need to have a conversation about how those that anger and that sense of betrayal cannot impede our ability to look into the future and and, and improve the city. And I think both things can be done at once. I do think, however, like many of the candidates are saying, the Spurs are owned by billionaires, and they ought to they ought to pay for the bricks and sticks to make their own stadium. We have the responsibility to take care of infrastructure anyway.

Manny Pelaez [00:49:03]:
We have the responsibility to to increase capacity at the convention center, make sure that the Alamodome is healthy, revitalize that Eastern part of hemisphere. But I do understand the public's frustration with saying, wait, you're gonna give Michael Dell and, you know, the Holt family my tax dollars, right, so that they can make money, and we're not even gonna get a percentage of the profits from Spurs games? Like, how does that make any mathematical sense in the mind of the voters? And I have to look them in the eye and say, it makes no mathematical sense. Right? And I think that I think the Spurs and the county are gonna have to lift a lot in order to get this stadium deal done, and I think I think it'll get done. But if we don't do it, just ask Oakland how it feels about losing the Raiders and the A's to Las Vegas. It is very real, that threat, and the Spurs don't have to make an explicit threat. Right? That threat is out there, and, you know, the unspoken threat is is, is palpable. Right? And so we we have to guard against losing the Spurs.

Bob Rivard [00:50:00]:
Alright. We're gonna have to leave it there, in the interest of equity and fairness to the other candidates, but we appreciate you coming on. And we'll invite the we think a runoff's inevitable. I think most candidates think a runoff is inevitable. And we'll certainly invite the runoff, candidates back onto the podcast to when we shrink it down from 27 to two.

Manny Pelaez [00:50:21]:
Alright, man. I'll see you then. Thanks for coming on

Bob Rivard [00:50:23]:
to Big City Small Town.

Manny Pelaez [00:50:24]:
Bob. Seriously. You're doing a great job. Thank you, Manny Pilais.

Bob Rivard [00:50:31]:
Please share this episode with friends and colleagues, and do sign up for Monday Musings, our weekly newsletter at BigCitySmallTown.com. Big City Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban, building the city our children want to call home, and Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Our producer is Corey Eames, video by Erica Rempel, and sound engineering by Alfie de la Garza of Sound Crane Audio. We will see you next week.