{"id":473064,"date":"2026-10-22T05:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T05:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473064\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T05:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T05:48:12","slug":"san-antonio-city-council-votes-to-slow-down-mayor-jones-appointment-of-bond-committee-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473064\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio City Council votes to slow down Mayor Jones’ appointment of bond committee leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just two days after Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones announced who would help decide projects to be funded through\u00a0the 2027 bond<\/a>, a majority of her City Council colleagues voted to slow down the momentum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At a special meeting Wednesday morning, leaders voted 7-3 to create an ordinance requiring that those nominated to lead the bond program be approved by\u00a0San Antonio City Council<\/a>. Those individuals would first have to be recommended by District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur and District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran, who are anchoring a subcommittee created through the ordinance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Council members Ric Galvan, Ivalis Meza Gonzalez, Teri Castillo, Marina Alderete Gavito and Marc Whyte, along with Kaur and Viagran, voted in favor of the ordinance. Jones was joined by City Council members Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and Edward Mungia in opposing it; Councilwoman Misty Spears was absent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Castillo, Alderete Gavito and Whyte had proposed the ordinance and pushed for the special meeting in a three-signature memo submitted to the city clerk last week.<\/p>\n

Come Monday, Jones’s office announced she had selected Jim Perschbach, Jelynne LeBlanc Jamison and Mario Obledo Jr. to serve as co-chairs of the 2027 bond program. Those selections represent leadership from Port San Antonio, the Center for Health Care Services and the San Antonio Food Bank, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The impetus behind the three-signature memo, Whyte told KENS 5, is that Jones hadn’t consulted with council members regarding her picks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s about having every council district having a voice in who the tri-chairs are,” Whyte said. “This is about process and making sure all voices are heard on this citywide bond package.”<\/p>\n

Jones’ favored picks echo bond co-chairs of the past when it comes to knowledge about quality of life, business and health care advancement in the Alamo City. Following her monthly town hall Wednesday night, she said she hoped the trio would get due consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Those three folks that I put forward are some of the most qualified people in this entire community,” she said. “We have to think about how infrastructure can address some of the longstanding inequities in our community that are largely tied to infrastructure\u2026 those three folks are well-qualified and can do exactly what we need them to do for the bond.”<\/p>\n

The ordinance states the tri-chair selection and finalization process should be done along a timeline that aims for putting bond propositions before San Antonio voters next May. For that to happen, City Council has until mid-February to finalize the proposed bond projects and ballot language.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Planning underway<\/p>\n

The city is in the early stages of planning at least $442 million in major infrastructure projects, street repairs and downtown accessibility upgrades. Assuming a major assist from TxDOT, city officials have earmarked a $35 million amount for downtown accessibility projects to help prepare for the sports and entertainment district.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even though that estimate is a fraction of the upwards of $200 million city staff previously said downtown improvements might cost, the anticipated bond capacity \u2013 shaped through property tax revenues and anticipated growth \u2013 is still much smaller than previous bond programs, typically developed on five-year cycles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City staff are recommending the $442 million bond capacity for 2027, but said it’s in the city’s power to go higher, including a potential $1 billion bond package. The staff proposal also features $175 million for drainage projects funded through a higher stormwater fee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But aiming that high would assume a huge turnaround in the economy and property tax revenues, and could force leaders to raise the debt service portion of the city’s property tax rate if that bounceback doesn’t happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, some council members have indicated a willingness to shoot for the higher bond package, citing long-needed improvements in their districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just two days after Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones announced who would help decide projects to be funded through\u00a0the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-473064","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\/473064","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=473064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}