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HA new investigation by TV station KSAT shows that San Antonio police offi cers who turn off their body cameras are rarely suspended. Even though SAPD policy requires offi cers to turn on their body cameras during interactions with the public, the investigation found that of the 256 body camera infractions the department has reviewed over a three-year period, only 42 resulted in an offi cer being suspended — a rate of less than one in fi ve.
HFive members of San Antonio City Council have fi led a proposal to expand the city’s eight-year-old non-discrimination ordinance to cover all private businesses with 15 or more employees. The ordinance, which protects people against various forms of identity-based discrimination, currently applies only to city employment and contracts, housing, public accommodations and board appointments. Under the proposal, the ordinance would also be expanded to include legal assistance for complainants and increased penalties for violators.
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HThe popular Delta-8 cannabis extract remains illegal in Texas after a state district judge in Austin denied a request for a temporary restraining order sought by the CBD retailer Hometown Hero. Many CBD retailers thought that the sale of Delta-8 was permi ed in the state following the passage of federal and state laws legalizing the sale of hemp. A Texas regulatory agency last month declared Delta-8 a Schedule I drug, meaning its sale is technically illegal.
A new comedy series from muchloved local author Shea Serrano is headed to Amazon-owned streaming service IMDb TV. Serrano will write and produce Primo, about a teenager trying to navigate his academic and social lives. It draws from Serrano’s childhood in San Antonio. Michael Schur of The Good Place will serve as executive producer. — Abe Asher
YOU SAID IT!
— Janie Gonzalez,
CPS Energy Trustee to the Express-News on the utility’s proposed rate hike
Saying the quiet part out loud with Texas Rep. Matt Krause
Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
Last week, State Rep. Ma Krause, R-Fort Worth, demanded that Texas school superintendents provide an accounting for books addressing racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights and gender issues which he said received “objections from students, parents, and taxpayers.”
Krause, a founder of the Tea Party-affi liated Texas Freedom Caucus, made the request Monday in a le er sent in his capacity as chair of the House Commi ee on General Investigating. His probe comes a month after he announced plans to run against Texas A orney General Ken Paxton in the GOP primary.
Among the books on a 16-page spreadsheet that accompanied Krause’s le er are The Fight forLGBTQ+ Rights by Devlin Smith, Black Lives Ma er: From Hashtag to the Streets by Artika R. Tyner and What Is the Black Lives Ma er Movement? by Hedreich Nichols. The list of nearly 900 books also includes fi ction titles such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron and Follow Your Arrow by Jessica Verdi, a young adult book dealing with themes related to sexual orientation.
Further, Krause’s le er asks the superintendents to catalog books on campus dealing with human sexuality, HIV/AIDS and any subject that makes students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish” because of discussions of race, sex or gender.
He requests the superintendents to share how many copies of each book their districts possesses and at what campus locations. He also asks them to identify how much the districts spent to buy the books.
In a statement, the Texas State Teachers Association said Krause’s le er “smacks of a witch hunt.” Which may be pu ing it politely, considering that the bulk of Krause’s list seems to center around books exploring ma ers of race, gender and sexuality.
In post-Trump America, Republican lawmakers don’t just feel empowered to say the quiet part out loud, they now see potential political gain from it. And this assclown is certainly no exception. — Sanford Nowlin
Twitter / @RepMattKrause
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U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, fi led a bill last week designed to hold down natural gas prices during environmental disasters such as February’s winter storm. The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Lloyd Dogge , D-Austin, would place a limit on natural gas trading during emergencies and establish fi nes for gas-related businesses that engage in price gouging. It would also open a federal inquiry into energy companies that made billions during the February storm.
U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert is again in the news for the wrong reasons. The East Texas congressman was IDed as one of several Republican lawmakers whose offi ces met multiple times with the organizers of the January 6 coup attempt, Rolling Stone reports. Citing two people involved in organizing former PresidentDonald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, the magazine reported that Gohmert and other pro-Trump GOPers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert, were “intimately involved” in planning the Jan. 6 events. Bexar County is set to receive more than $12 million in payments from Johnson & Johnson in the company’s se lement for its role in perpetrating the opioid crisis. The county will receive $4.1 million to se le its 2018 suit against the company and $8.5 million more as part of Texas’ se lement with the company. The county is expected to receive its money by year’s end. —
Abe Asher
Find more news coverage every day at sacurrent.com
Sanford Nowlin
CITYSCRAPES
The 14% Solution
After the February freeze, it’s time for San Antonio to break its addiction to CPS Energy’s revenues
BY HEYWOOD SANDERS
Editor’s Note: The following is CityScrapes, a column of opinion and analysis.
And I sincerely doubt many know that 14% of CPS Energy’s revenues are remi ed to the City of San Antonio’s general fund each year, accounting for 20% of the city’s operating budget.” — Bill Greehey, Foreword, Powering a City, 2017.
“If the truth be known, after all the breast beating and fl ailing about gas prices, the city government was an accomplice in the increases to consumers … The city is addicted to the CPS payment just as irrevocably as if it were an advanced state of heroin dependence. This is because the payment has covered the holes in our tax appraisal system [and] allowed large taxpayers to get away with low appraisals.” — Councilmember Henry Cisneros, December 1977.
For decades, the city government of San Antonio has been able to receive up to 14% of CPS Energy’s gross revenues, constituting a signifi cant share of the dollars that pay for general fund services including police and fi re, parks, recreation, libraries and street maintenance. The trust indenture that was part of the city’s purchase of the San Antonio Public Service Company in 1942 called for up to a 14% return, or “profi t,” to the new owners: the residents of San Antonio.
That return had some particularly valuable features, unlike the property tax that largely funded the city at that time. The new public utility, City Public Service, provided gas and electricity to areas outside the city limits, eff ectively levying a San Antonio “tax” on residents of Olmos Park, Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills, as well as unincorporated areas of the county. And the city’s take of CPS revenues meant that as prices of natural gas and coal went up, the city government profi ted.
Everything worked just fi ne with that arrangement. Until the mid-1970s, when natural gas prices went through the roof. The city sued its natural gas supplier, and CPS was obliged to raise its rates. By 1977, with public dissatisfaction growing with CPS and the city government over the gas price increases and monthly utility bills, city council chose to reduce the “take” on the gas portion of CPS service. The return on the utilities’ overall revenues was reduced from the 14% to 11.5%. That decision by council made clear that the 14% fi gure was a maximum — the city could, and did, choose to take a lesser fraction, lowering the burden on consumers.
But just as the city could lower its take, it could boost it as well. And so, notwithstanding then-councilmember Cisneros’ deep concern over the city’s “addiction,” the Texas oil crash of the 1980s changed the city government’s fi nancial situation, and the political dynamic. Facing a serious budget defi cit in early 1987, city council was forced to consider some unpleasant alternatives. City Manager Lou Fox initially proposed cu ing dozens of vacant positions. But when it became clear that wouldn’t eliminate the millions in projected defi cit, Councilmember Yolanda Vera argued for taking the full 14% return on CPS revenues.
The alternative, a boost in the property tax rate, was clearly anathema to city council — and to politically ambitious Mayor Cisneros, who was pushing to build a domed stadium. So, the fi nal new budget adopted in September 1987 included taking the full 14% of CPS revenues.
What the council could reduce, the council could later increase.
The change back to the 14% take was a short-term fi scal fi x. But it eff ectively became permanent, much as Cisneros had argued with his “addiction” comment in 1977. Still, city council — not CPS Energy — has the choice of where to set the city’s share of those revenues. Now, facing the bills for last winter’s freeze and the prospect of a serious rate hike as CPS fi nally deals with adapting its infrastructure to a future of more severe winter weather amidst climate change, is the time to revisit the 14% return.
The recent increases in property tax revenues from the growth in values have given the city government something of a windfall, despite the impact of the pandemic. Our councilmembers need to do what’s right and assure the public that the city won’t take the full 14% on the unusual costs of the big freeze, whatever the outcome of CPS Energy’s various lawsuits against natural-gas suppliers it accused of price gouging during the storm.
San Antonio residents shouldn’t have to pay for the mistakes or failings of CPS, or the cost of remedying them. It’s past time to revisit the “addiction” Henry Cisneros described in 1977.
Heywood Sanders is a professor of public policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
