Welcome to the inaugural Monday Musings newsletter from me, bigcitysmalltown host Bob Rivard.
The weekly newsletter will arrive in your email inbox every Monday morning, an offering of comments and perspective on the latest local and regional news, and events beyond San Antonio and South Texas that will impact our life and work here.
Coming editions of the newsletter will look at developing national stories that are bound to have a significant impact in San Antonio and South Texas, including President-elect Donald Trump’s threats/promises to deport millions of undocumented workers and asylum seekers, and his threat to impose 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada, the U.S.’s two leading trade partners. Coupled with Trump’s incredible claims to be eyeing a takeover of Greenland and a move to strip Canada of its sovereignty and make it the 51st state, there are, understandably, nervous and unsettled neighbors to our south and north. And plenty of us in between.
And then there is the 89th session of the Texas Legislature that opens this month in Austin. More on that soon.
Let’s get started with this week’s topic: Who will be San Antonio’s next mayor?
I don’t make a lot of New Year’s resolutions, but one on my list is to provide our growing audience with an informed take on the coming mayor’s race in San Antonio, although how a weekly podcast can cover so much ground without turning into a forum for an endless parade of mayoral candidates is a puzzle our team here has yet to solve. Election Day is May 3, 2025, but early voting will be set for late April. Sadly, we can expect less than 20% of eligible city residents to cast votes. Thanks to voters’ approval of Proposition F on the November ballot, the next mayor will be elected to a four-year term with an option to seek a second four-year term.
Who is the frontrunner to replace Mayor Ron Nirenberg, now serving in the last months of his eight years in office, term-limited from running yet again? No one, really. Unless things have changed since the release of a September survey by the UTSA Center for Public Opinion Research, no candidate could count on more than 10% of the likely voters surveyed. District 9 Councilman John Courage, the first council member to announce his candidacy, drew a weak 9% to finish first, but he has since dropped out, a septuagenarian who decided life is taking him in other directions. Listen to BCST Episode 80 recorded in November with Dr. Brian Gervais, director of the UTSA Center, to hear more. And expect a fresh UTSA poll soon.
With Courage withdrawing from the race, a better question might be: Who isn’t running? At least 18 individuals have announced plans to run, or are weighing a run, according to this December 22 article by the San Antonio Report’s government and politics reporter Andrea Drusch. Unfortunately, all it takes for someone 18 or older to get their name on the ballot is $100 and proof of city residency. That means voters will face a ballet featuring a long list of legitimate candidates, gadflies, and jokers in no particular order. The majority of the candidates will not mount serious campaigns, raise significant funds to reach voters, or be invited to participate in candidate forums and debates. The deadline for filing is Feb. 14. Expect to lose a few names, and gain a few new ones.
Here at bigcitysmalltown, we are planning on partnering with the San Antonio Report’s Andrea Drusch on a series of podcast episodes featuring the candidates who mount serious campaigns. Stand by for more on that in the next month.
As of today, there are three sitting council members – District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez, District 6 Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda, and District 4 Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia – who have announced plans to run. All three have records to run on as they work to generate support beyond their home districts.
Incredibly, former District 10 councilman Clayton Perry, whose political career seemingly ended with his drunken hit-and-run episode in November 2022, has said he wants to run. He’ll have to suffer the return of some damning videotapes of his drunken behavior after consuming 15 drinks in four hours before he was eventually found lying in his own backyard. That was after crashing his SUV into his garage door and leaving the engine running until a police officer arrived to shut it off. You can watch Perry’s binge night on the town from start to pants-wetting finish on this KSAT-TV report, including the sloshed 69-year-old’s pathetic and unwanted come-ons to a teenage Bill Miller worker.
A very lenient Bexar County Judge Erica Dominguez allowed Perry to plead no contest to the charges in exchange for deferred adjudication, a deal the Bexar County District Attorney’s office opposed. If Perry completes 12 months of probation in April, which includes not drinking alcohol, he will avoid being convicted. Yes, his slate will be wiped clean. Think you or I would get the same deal? Ha!
Speaking of former council members with political ambitions, is former D6 councilman and mayoral candidate Greg Brockhouse considering yet another run? He has not said so, but there is the Greg Brockhouse newsletter that was launched at year’s end.
Former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, a South Texas Republican close to Gov. Greg Abbott, also is running on a pro-business platform. Some GOP donors have told me Pablos’ argument to support him includes his claim that he alone among the candidates “can get the governor on the phone.” That may be the strongest argument for not voting for Pablos, given Abbott’s continuing antagonistic culture wars with big city mayors in Texas.
The person campaigning the hardest and the longest to date isn’t even a politician. It’s a young, charismatic tech exec by the name of Beto Altamirano, another Rio Grande Valley native whose City Flag company developed the City of San Antonio’s 311 mobile app, which allows citizens to connect directly with city representatives to request services, register complaints and obtain general information. Beto is now the CEO of IRYS Technologies, a cyber security company with military contracts. He has the funds to run, and has seemingly hit every neighborhood org in the city. His social media postings are hard to miss. The venerable Phil Hardberger, still with it at age 90, was the last outsider to be elected mayor. His term-limited four years were highly productive ones. So there is precedent.
Finally, there is Gina Ortiz Jones, who served as an Under Secretary of the Air Force in the Biden Administration, and twice ran for Congress as a Democrat in Texas's 23rd Congressional District.
What about all the others? If they mount serious campaigns, I’ll write about them.
I decided to focus on the crowded mayor’s race in this first edition of Monday Musings because I believe this vote is of enormous consequence to San Antonio and its future trajectory. It shouldn’t be an election that ends with only 10-15% of the eligible voters showing up.
With a crowded field of candidates, a June runoff between the top two finishers is likely. A higher-quality pool of leading candidates, strong media coverage, and well-organized forums and debates could significantly boost voter turnout. Turnout could also rise if compelling candidates emerge in the four council districts without incumbents seeking re-election: Districts 4, 6, 8, and 9. The first three districts are represented by current council members running for mayor, while District 9’s John Courage is term-limited out.
We will do our part here at bigcitysmalltown.
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