Turmoil in ’25: 10 stories that dominated San Antonio's news cycle this year

Flash floods devastated the Texas Hill Country in July. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Unknown creator

Overall, 2025 was a dark year for local, state and national news.

Immigrants and U.S. citizens were rounded up and sent into oblivion, while Texas lawmakers targeted the state’s transgender residents for simply existing. Locally, San Antonio taxpayers are on the hook for another publicly financed stadium, while the new mayor continues to struggle to build a consensus on the dais.

If there’s one word to accurately describe politics in 2025, it’s “turmoil.”

But even in the darkest of times, there are glimmers of hope. President Trump and Texas’ Republican leadership tried to rig the 2026 midterms, but even if the redrawn districts are held up by the courts, the five additional Republican seats in Congress they hoped for aren’t a given.

And although wealthy out-of-town developers are trying to push through a controversial housing development in far Northwest Bexar County, residents have organized and aren’t giving up.

Here’s a look at the 10 biggest stories affecting San Antonio this year.

1. Project Marvel and the Spurs’ new stadium

Tired of hearing about this one yet? For the second consecutive year, big (and vague) downtown development Project Marvel dominated San Antonio headlines. Coverage leading up to the November election on whether to publicly finance a new downtown arena for the Spurs, as part of the broader Project Marvel sports and entertainment district vision, reached a fever pitch. Get ready: the story is likely to dominate coverage next year as well. Although financing for the NBA arena is in place, there’s still plenty of work to be done, likely including an infrastructure bond package vote in the spring, and the Alamodome and Convention Center expansions, which city officials previously said are among their top priorities.

2. New Mayor and new City Hall squabbles

San Antonio elected a new mayor this summer, and the turbulence didn’t end with her swearing-in. San Antonio residents whittled down a list of 27 potential candidates, resulting in a runoff between progressive Gina Ortiz Jones, a former Under Secretary of the Air Force and Rolando Pablos, a conservative hand-picked by Gov. Greg Abbott. With a second Trump presidency looming large, the people chose Jones. Despite presiding over a largely progressive council, the City Hall outsider’s had a hard time building consensus, whether it’s on approving the term sheet about a new Spurs arena or building agreement on an anti-pet dumping ordinance. However, with a late-year vote to move the city’s municipal elections building public support, it appears Jones and city council could be turning the page and becoming more cooperative.

3. San Antonio and Hill Country Floods

Climate change has consequences, as made apparent by a summer filled with tragedy from Central and South Texas flooding. Indeed, 13 people died on San Antonio’s Northeast side in June when vehicles were swept away during a flash flood at Beitel Creek. Weeks later, another 135 people — many of them children at summer camp — drowned when the waters of the Guadalupe River rose without warning. Politicians from both sides pointed fingers while parents planned funerals. South and Central Texans are no strangers to flash floods, but as these events become more frequent, there’s growing consensus that lawmakers should acknowledge reality, stop playing the blame game and start taking action to prevent further tragedies.

4. School Vouchers

After years of trying, Gov. Greg Abbott and his allies finally managed to force school vouchers down Texas voters’ throats in the most recent legislative session. When applications launch next spring, some 100,000 Texas families will receive $10,000 taxpayer-funded stipends to send their kids to private schools of their choice. Supporters argue the move allows children in failing school districts to get a better education. However, opponents — including a number of education experts — maintain the venture will only raise school tuition and force the state to fund parallel school systems, which begs the question: Wouldn’t it be easier to give existing public school districts more funding?

5. Bexar County voter registration backlog

The Bexar County Elections Department had its share of drama this year, most notably a backlog of 53,000 unprocessed voter registrations that piled up the November election. Part of the holdup was a rough transition to a new voter registration processing system. The prior system’s vendor went out of business in August, meaning county officials knew they would need to find a replacement. Nonetheless, commissioners hemmed and hawed about the spending money, resulting a setback to the timeline. The stopgap solution was to join the Texas Secretary of State’s system, even though Elections Administrator Michele Carew admitted it wasn’t equipped to handle a city as large as San Antonio. The system struggled to import the county’s 2 million records. In a scramble to meet the deadline for October early voting, the department hired on dozens of temp staffers and worked long hours and weekends.

6. Guajolote Ranch Development

A controversial development by Florida-based homebuilder Lennar in far Northwest Bexar County continued to grab local headlines this year. In October, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) approved a permit allowing the company to build a treated wastewater discharge station on the sensitive Helotes Creek watershed. Opponents point to a 2020 Southwest Research Institute study, which found that such a discharge station could damage the quality of water in the Edwards Aquifer, and have since filed an appeal with the TCEQ. Further complicating matters is Lennar’s petition for a Municipal Utility District at the 2,900-home development, meaning local residents will be forced to pay for the unwanted wastewater station if Lennar’s petition is approved. A special hearing on the matter is scheduled for Jan. 16.

7. ‘Bathroom bill’ and Texas’ punishment of trans residents

Texas Republican lawmakers continued to pass legislation stripping rights and dignity away from the state’s transgender residents this year. Among the most prominent of those measures is Senate Bill 8, the “bathroom bill.” Also known as the Texas Women’s Privacy Act, the law requires people use restroom in public buildings that align with their sex assigned at birth — as if the state doesn’t have bigger problems to tackle. Cities and state offices found violating the law can be fined up to $125,000. That law also comes a year after Texas made it nearly impossible to change your gender on your state-issued driver’s license. Opponents worry the ID change could hinder the rights of trans people to vote and engage in other activities.

8. Intensifying immigration raids

Trump made good on his promise to step up mass deportations, and the chaos and cruelty has spilled into San Antonio. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up to immigration hearings in San Antonio, whisking those asylum seekers trying to enter the country “the right way.” Meanwhile, a November raid on what feds called an after-hours club on the city’s North Side has left more questions unanswered, including the names of those detained and what happened to them. The Current also reported on grim conditions at South Texas holding facilities, where detainees are reportedly fighting over water while lacking basic healthcare and necessities. The administration denies the allegations, while DHS issues canned statements, often peppered with questionable claims about it targeting the “worst of the worst.”

9. Texas Measles Outbreak

As it turns out, so-called “healthcare freedom” and vaccine skepticism can lead to outbreaks of diseases that had largely been eradicated. Texas was ground zero for the worst measles outbreak in 35 years, resulting in 762 confirmed cases, 99 hospitalizations and two deaths. The overwhelming majority of those sickened had either not been vaccinated or received both requires shots. Meanwhile, Trump Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaxxer, spread false claims online about the incident. Although the outbreak is now officially over, many are worried measles or other highly contagious diseases may become a fixture of life in the Lone Star State. Is it 2026, or 1906?

10. Texas redistricting

With his approval numbers plummeting and experts predicting a midterm bloodbath for Republicans, Trump this summer demanded Gov. Greg Abbott redraw Texas’ congressional maps to favor the GOP. The outcome went about as well as one might expect. Democrat lawmakers fled the state in a bid to halt the vote, as they have in the past. But there was only so long they could delay the inevitable. Although Abbott and Trump got their new map, the matter is expected to continue to be challenged in the courts throughout 2026. What’s more, whoever drew the maps may have miscalculated Latino support for Trump, which is waning for obvious reasons.

Digital Content Editor Stephanie Koithan contributed to this report.

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Turmoil in ’25: 10 stories that dominated San Antonio’s news cycle this year

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