{"id":372307,"date":"2026-07-14T09:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T09:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/372307\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T09:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T09:38:09","slug":"opinion-evaluate-city-council-members-performance-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/372307\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Evaluate City Council members&#8217; performance, too"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"District 1 Counciln Member Sukh Kaur, right, holds a press conference following the City Council\u2019s 8-1 vote to censure Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones for \u201cunacceptable conduct\u201d toward Kaur earlier this year. City Council members should be scrutinized just as much as the mayor, a reader says.\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-black mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>District 1 Counciln Member Sukh Kaur, right, holds a press conference following the City Council\u2019s 8-1 vote to censure Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones for \u201cunacceptable conduct\u201d toward Kaur earlier this year. City Council members should be scrutinized just as much as the mayor, a reader says.<\/p>\n<p>Sam Owens\/San Antonio Express-News<img alt=\"Candles are lit during a vigil for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, after a federal immigration agent shot and killed him this month. The shooting has drawn national attention, and a reader says it's paramount to learn the truth about what happened.\" loading=\"lazy\"   style=\"aspect-ratio:3 \/ 2\" class=\"x100 y100 opc bgpc ofcv bgscv block bg-black mnh0px fill\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Candles are lit during a vigil for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, after a federal immigration agent shot and killed him this month. The shooting has drawn national attention, and a reader says it&#8217;s paramount to learn the truth about what happened.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Felix\/Associated Press<\/p>\n<p>Critique council, too<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-channels-pixel.ex.co\/events\/0012000001fxZm9AAE?integrationType=DEFAULT&amp;template=design%2Farticle%2Fplatypus_two_column.tpl\" alt=\"\" class=\"x1px y1px vh abs\" aria-hidden=\"true\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n<p>It seems that many individuals and organizations focus on selectively criticizing everything Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones does or says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>For example, why did a University of Texas at San Antonio poll <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/news\/article\/gina-ortiz-jones-voter-approval-utsa-poll-22337554.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">focus on Jones?<\/a> Why not evaluate the performance of City Council members?<\/p>\n<p>They, along with the mayor, decide which policies are approved or rejected.<\/p>\n<p>There are 10 council members advocating for their specific areas of the city, while the mayor has a broader responsibility for the entire city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Tighten city&#8217;s belt<\/p>\n<p>Re: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/news\/article\/san-antonio-botanical-garden-city-budget-funding-22328681.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cMayor targets garden,\u201d<\/a> Front Page, July 7:<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones deserves credit for saying the hard part out loud.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>If we\u2019re cutting senior nutrition, discussing tax hikes and facing 33% higher water bills, we shouldn\u2019t spend $1 million making San Antonio Botanical Garden tickets cheaper.<\/p>\n<p>With the garden having a\u00a0budget exceeding $10 million and enough money to hire a firm to fight a reduced subsidy, that should be an easy call.<\/p>\n<p>The mayor and council should be consistent. There\u2019s no shortage of fat to trim.<\/p>\n<p>From $96 million promoting the Ready to Work program to $170,000 painting perfectly good sidewalks while more than one-third of the city lacks sidewalks altogether, City Hall has plenty of opportunities to cut spending before asking taxpayers to sacrifice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>Families across San Antonio are tightening their belts; city government should finally do the same and focus on reliable, efficient core services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"cci_tagline_name\" title=\"CCI Tagline Name\">Justin P. Nichols, State Republican Executive Committee<\/p>\n<p>Law, lives both important<\/p>\n<p>I was saddened to learn that\u00a0Lorenzo Salgado Araujo\u00a0was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>This tragedy raises difficult questions. Why did this man lose his life? Who bears responsibility?<\/p>\n<p>We should allow the investigation to determine exactly what happened.<\/p>\n<p>There are two realities that can exist at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>On one hand, \u00a0Salgado appears to have been an immigrant without legal status who worked, raised a family and, by many accounts, was a decent person. At the same time, he reportedly lived in the United States for many years without obtaining legal status.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, ICE has a legal duty to locate, detain and remove individuals who are in the country unlawfully. Whether people agree with those laws or not, the agency\u2019s mission is to enforce them.<\/p>\n<p>A death is always tragic, and his family deserves compassion.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than rushing to assign blame before all the facts are known, we should seek the truth, hold anyone who acted unlawfully accountable, and remember that both enforcing the law and protecting human life are important values.<\/p>\n<p class=\"uiTextSmall f aic jcc\">Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<p class=\"MM_onlineOnly\" title=\"CCI Online Only\">Have a response? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/projects\/2026\/letter-to-the-editor\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Send us a letter to the editor.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"District 1 Counciln Member Sukh Kaur, right, holds a press conference following the City Council\u2019s 8-1 vote to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-372307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}