existing non-annexation agreement<\/a> with the larger Timberwood Park area but is currently more than three-quarters of a mile past the city limits.<\/p>\nDuring a Wednesday council discussion at which they also discussed raising SAWS rates, several members voiced doubts about helping out.<\/p>\n
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones asked whether it was possible for the county to pay for the entire project, an idea with which Marina Alderete Gavito (D7) said she agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, our council should not be fixing the mistakes of the county,\u201d Alderete Gavito said. \u201cWe have a lot of our own problems, and I\u2019d hate to see SAWS kind of soak up those fees especially right now, as we\u2019re asking for a rate increase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edward Mungia (D4) said his main concern was the project not being in the city limits and was hopeful they could \u201ccontinue to work with the county on something with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got folks in my district, right, that are not going to be connected,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so it\u2019s going to be hard for me to tell folks why this neighborhood not in the city limits is going to get connected and not folks over here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) said he might be more willing to consider waiving fees if the neighborhood was \u201cdown\u201d to be annexed into the city early.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut to go several years without paying any property taxes, but then to seek essentially 400-some-odd thousand dollars from, you know, the city and our partners… I don\u2019t \u2014 that doesn\u2019t jive well with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Misty Spears (D9) got involved with the issue when she worked in Commissioner Grant Moody\u2019s office and has been the strongest council advocate for helping the subdivision. She says her concern is about the aquifer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would just maintain that this is a 75-unit neighborhood that has been protecting our aquifer by three or four people maintaining this duct-taped system, and we are just one really bad thunderstorm away from it really affecting our drinking water,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
SAWS CEO Robert Puente told council members the area is in the contributing zone for the aquifer, which is less of a problem than the recharge areas, and most of the problems happen during heavy rainfall when it would also cause \u201ca lot of dilution of that problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has been \u201cvery active\u201d on the issue, and that when they fine people, they allow the money to be used to fix the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey essentially give it back to you to fix the problem. So that was done in this circumstance, I believe,\u201d Puente said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so we feel that there\u2019s not a big environmental issue that we have to be worried about regarding this development.\u201d<\/p>\n
HOA President Roy Block, though, said he doesn\u2019t know what Puente was talking about with the TCEQ and said the HOA is on a three-year payment plan for at least one TCEQ fine.<\/p>\n
Neighborhood members and Spears also point to the typically dry creek bed next to the septic system, which leads to Mustang Creek. <\/p>\n
Edwards Aquifer Authority Senior Director of Aquifer Science and Modeling Paul Bertetti confirmed that creek flows into the recharge zone. He said the failing system getting into the water supply \u201ccertainly is a concern\u201d but didn\u2019t know how big of one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s likely that waste from overflows and waste from the septic system itself contribute to contaminants getting into the Edwards Aquifer system, and it would be prudent to hook that system up to SAWS\u2019 wastewater treatment system to prevent that from happening,\u201d he told KSAT.<\/p>\n
Puente said a five-year payment plan for the fees was also an option, which he estimated would be about $92 a month, per home. <\/p>\n
A city spokesman on Thursday was unable to say when the fee waiver issue might come up for a council vote.<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Some San Antonio council members are skeptical whether a north Bexar County subdivision\u2019s attempt to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[698,3084,82,84,83,3215],"class_list":["post-454025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-bexar-county","tag-city-hall","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-saws"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454025","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=454025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}