City Charter Commission Hearing – May 9th – Denise’s Transcript
Good evening. My name is Denise Gutierrez Homer and I’m here representing InfuseSA.
As we continue the discussion and recommendations for the new city charter of San Antonio, one of the most concerning issues which will be addressed by this board tonight, will be the recommendations of policies regarding the Ethics Commission.
The issue at hand is that we currently have members of our City Council with questionable relationships with their donors. These elected members have knowledge of current and future real estate development plans, specifically real estate projects in San Antonio and their own district.
Councilwoman Melissa Cabello-Havdra is an attorney and real estate agent. Councilwoman Sukh Kaur, promotes herself as a real estate developer. This creates major concerns regarding governmental access and information for current projects, and possible future personal financial gains.
The Ethics Commission should specifically look at this issue and set a policy.
We have all heard about the concerns of certain Federal Senators having access to stockholdings, with gains and losses, while holding an active role in Washington.
Our sitting council members should refrain from such scrutiny by taking a leave of absence from any real estate or legal firms working in this type of job while in their elected position.
With such a profitable real estate industry in San Antonio, council members should abstain either from taking donations from developers, real estate attorneys, real estate PACS (political action committees), and/or from any projects associated with a real estate or construction company, or engineers currently working on city projects, that have donated to their election.
As for this City Charter Commission, Mr. Dwayne Robinson is currently participating in the recommendations for the City Council and Mayor. It is disappointing that the vetting process either ignored or omitted Mr. Robinson’s consultation fees paid from Mayor Ron Nirenberg in 2023.
Mr. Robinson’s information is clearly available on the city candidate finance web site. He was paid by the mayor, who selected this entire Board. Robinson was also paid by the Build SA PAC.
The review of candidates and council members are under scrutiny by the Ethics Committee, which this new city charter recommendations failed to review as evidenced by the mayor’s selection of non-residents and a paid consultant to this commission.
Will an ethics review be taken of the mayor’s dereliction of the committee selection process? Most likely not.
If San Antonio voters are expected to vote on your recommendations for salary increases, Ethics Committee, and other policies, it would be wise to review and deliberate the flaws by the board and the mayor who selected this committee.
A vote of “No Confidence” will be the final choice of San Antonio residents when this comes to a vote.