In a fiery one-hour debate Tuesday night time, Bexar County Choose Peter Sakai and Democratic major challenger Ron Nirenberg talked over each other, rewrote historical past on a serious downtown improvement challenge and forged blame over who was at fault for a faltering relationship between metropolis and county officers.
The 2 males overlapped as prime leaders of a blue metropolis and county — Nirenberg as San Antonio mayor and Sakai as Bexar County’s prime govt — for 2 and a half years.
Now opponents in a heated Democratic major, they’ve gone deep into the weeds on previous coverage fights to distinguish themselves in a race the place few ideological variations exist.
“We could trip, there could also be plenty of phrases mentioned,” Sakai warned the group of greater than 500 folks at Steady Corridor in his opening remarks. “However I’m asking you to take a look at who I’m.”
Early voting for the March 3 major begins on Feb. 17.
Examine the entire candidates working for workplace in Bexar County
The talk hosted by the San Antonio Report, the Better San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and Tech Bloc got here simply days after Sakai shocked political observers by distancing himself from the downtown improvement challenge generally known as Venture Marvel — made potential by a $311 county venue tax contribution Sakai simply requested voters to help on the Nov. 4 poll.
Sakai was initially a critic of a city-driven challenge that began beneath Nirenberg’s mayoral administration. However on the urging of the enterprise group, each males in the end performed a task in making it potential, together with filming adverts for a PAC aligned with the Spurs forward of the November venue tax vote.
Now Sakai says the downtown improvement doesn’t do sufficient to make good on guarantees made to the East Facet, regardless of county leaders as soon as suggesting that property taxes from Venture Marvel would assist pay for corresponding East Facet developments.
“I caught holy heck from the group with reference to Venture Marvel,” he informed the group Tuesday night time. “I used to be given a 30-minute briefing final 12 months, and that was the extent of it. I nonetheless don’t know what Venture Marvel is.”
In the meantime Nirenberg, who was mayor throughout the years of closed-door negotiations residents had been so upset about, is attacking Sakai for not involving the group sufficient in a imaginative and prescient for the East Facet.
“We have to ensure that we’re participating the whole group, to ensure that they’re envisioning and so they have some self-determination within the efforts which can be taking place outdoors of the Freeman Coliseum grounds,” Nirenberg mentioned.
Including to the sharp-elbowed assaults, the candidates’ previous political consultants swapped sides for this race, giving them every large perception into each other’s data and potential weaknesses.
For instance, Sakai used a query in regards to the controversial Guajolote Ranch improvement to hammer Nirenberg for steering gross sales tax {dollars} away from the aquifer to fund public transit and a workforce improvement program throughout his time as mayor.
“You had been an environmentalist, and also you moved away from that,” Sakai mentioned.
In the meantime Nirenberg accused Sakai, a longtime district court docket choose, of falling brief on his guarantees to make use of the county choose place to resolve longstanding points with the judiciary.
“The problems that we’re going to be debating right now are the identical ones that Peter promised to unravel three and a half years in the past,” Nirenberg mentioned. “We’re reacting to each challenge in our group proper now, from a case backlog that persists due to lack of prosecutorial sources within the courts, as nicely within the district lawyer’s workplace, to jail overcrowding points that proceed to be exacerbated.”
A choose with out the gown
Among the most heated disputes came to visit their interpretation of a task that isn’t an actual choose, however that almost all leaders come to with a legislation diploma or legislative expertise.
Nirenberg repeatedly known as the county choose place a CEO-type function that requires sturdy management like he discovered in his eight years as mayor.
“As [former County Judge] Nelson Wolff mentioned, this is without doubt one of the weirdest types of authorities beneath the solar, as a result of you may have various totally different elected officers which have their very own operational management of assorted components of this authorities,” Nirenberg mentioned. “They’ve budgetary management in some issues, nevertheless it’s the commissioner’s court docket, together with the county choose, that should work collectively and management the price range and handle.”
Wolff as soon as endorsed Sakai as a successor when he was retiring in 2022, however has now lined up behind Nirenberg on this race, after Sakai spent the previous three years disparaging Wolff’s report as too targeted on main improvement tasks.
Sakai fired again that Nirenberg, a former radio station supervisor who served as this system director for the Annenberg Public Coverage Heart, lacks the essential abilities required for the job as a result of he doesn’t have a authorized background.
“It’s not bizarre. It’s state legislation. It’s the Texas Structure. All these authorities, the District Legal professional’s Workplace, the sheriff, the county choose, the county commissioners, are all outlined by statute … you’ll want to perceive the legislation,” mentioned Sakai, who famous that as a district court docket choose he as soon as dominated in opposition to San Antonio’s paid sick go away ordinance.
“Town needed to spend some huge cash defending what was clearly an unconstitutional ordinance,” Sakai mentioned. “I help paid go away. I feel it ought to be required, nevertheless it was unconstitutional.”
Nirenberg contended that Sakai has leaned too laborious on his expertise as a choose, and by no means discovered the management and political abilities required to seek out consensus on massive choices.
The county has repeatedly kicked the can down the highway on main spending choices, like which packages funded by federal pandemic reduction it’ll minimize as soon as that funding dries up.
“I’m working to guide at a time when management is required probably the most,” Nirenberg mentioned. “We face extraordinary challenges on this group, however we have now the sources and expertise to maneuver our group in vital methods with the best management on the prime.”
