Longtime Public Works Director Razi Hosseini will retire in September, amid complaints in regards to the metropolis’s dealing with of main development initiatives
So persistent are the general public’s issues that final 12 months a bunch of native enterprise homeowners fashioned a political motion committee to start out pushing for adjustments — even earlier than the newest drama with development initiatives surrounding the Remaining 4 event.
Metropolis Supervisor Erik Walsh shared the information of Hosseini’s retirement in a Tuesday employees announcement obtained by the Report.
“I’ll be working to develop a transition plan to make sure the town continues to ship necessary metropolis providers and undertaking oversight,” Walsh mentioned within the announcement. “My due to Razi for his management, professionalism and devoted service to our group.”
Hosseini has virtually 4 many years of engineering expertise, has labored for the town since 1991 and has overseen implementation of 4 of the most important bond packages accepted by San Antonio voters, together with enlargement of Henry B. Gonzalez Conference Heart, initiatives on the San Antonio Worldwide Airport and renovations on the Alamodome.
In 2021, the Bexar County Chapter of the Texas Society of Skilled Engineers named Hosseini as Engineer of the Yr.
Attributable to a lot of media requests, a spokesman for Public Works mentioned the division is to not doing any interviews proper now, regardless that the Report had initially scheduled a telephone name interview with Hosseini.
Lately, Hosseini’s division has been criticized for being sluggish to finish sure development initiatives, together with development on North St. Mary’s Road, which took a 12 months longer than it was presupposed to and concluded in 2023.
After briefly repaving South Alamo Road for the 100,000 guests anticipated to land in San Antonio for the NCAA Males’s Remaining 4 event this week, the town will resume development after the sports activities occasion concludes. Development at South Alamo Road has been underway since 2022.
Public Works spokesman Nicholas Olivier mentioned lower than half of the hall was paved due to the Remaining 4, including that the remainder of the short-term paving was executed beforehand to accommodate the one lane of automotive site visitors that’s been in place since March 2024.
In response to small enterprise homeowners who’ve been affected by the pandemic and bond-related development within the type of much less enterprise and income, the town’s Financial Growth Division got here up with a plan to disburse $1.4 million to affected companies.
Lately, the town has paid out virtually $60 million in support to bolster affected small companies total.
As a substitute of doling out extra {dollars}, Mayor Ron Nirenberg mentioned the town’s efforts are “higher spent serious about how we are able to shrink the timeline of those development initiatives.”
“I’ve had actually enterprise homeowners crying throughout my workplace hours due to this,” mentioned Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1), whose district consists of South Alamo Road.
Final 12 months, an audit into Public Works discovered that the division’s communications round main development initiatives didn’t attain out to enterprise homeowners affected by these initiatives.
Because of the audit, the division created a corrective motion plan that features a digital dashboard with data on present bond development initiatives, informational internet pages for main initiatives and the flexibility for employees so as to add highway closure data to the Waze navigation app.
The latest bond program, handed in 2022, gives $1.2 billion for 182 infrastructure initiatives, which embody enhancements to streets, bridges, parks and recreation, drainage, cultural amenities and public security amenities.
One of the latest development initiatives to be accomplished and opened to the general public from that bond is the World Heritage Heart, a “gateway to the San Antonio Missions and a gathering place for San Antonio residents and guests.”
The middle was opened this February, which lined up with the town’s timeline for the undertaking.
Reporter Andrea Drusch contributed to this text.
