Month: March 2021

Briefing on Proposed Code of Conduct for the Historic and Design Review Commission on March 3, 2021

Purpose: The residents of San Antonio are entitled to have a fair, ethical, and accountable local government. To achieve this goal appointed officials should: 

• Comply with the letter and the spirit of the laws and ordinances that apply to the structure and operations of local government. 
• Be independent, impartial, and fair in their judgements and actions. 
• Use their office for public good and community needs and not for personal gain or self-promotion.
• Conduct public deliberations openly and in an atmosphere of respect and civility. 

To this end the City of San Antonio Historic Design and Review Commission adopts the following Code of Conduct to increase public confidence and trust in the integrity of local government and its effective operations. 

Code of Conduct

All members of the Historic Design and Review Commission, including the Chair, have equal votes. 

No Commissioner has more legislative power than any other Commissioner, and all should be treated with equal dignity and respect. 

All Commissioners should: 

• Fully participate in Commission meetings, public hearings, and other public forums while demonstrating respect, kindness, considerations, and courtesy to others.
• Prepare in advance of meetings by reviewing Staff presentations, reports, memorandums, and other pertinent material and be familiar with issues on the agenda. Questions and comments should be directed to Staff in advance, if practical, so that public deliberations and information sharing can be effective and timely. 
• Represent the City at public events in a professional manner. Serve as a model of leadership and civility to the community. 
• Be respectful of other people’s time. Stay focused, be succinct, and act efficiently during meetings.
• Inspire public confidence in San Antonio local government through thoughtful representation and a commitment to discuss and deliberate issues based on fact.

Public Meeting Hearing Protocol  

It is the responsibility of the chair to keep comments on track during public meetings. 

Commissioners should honor efforts by the chair to focus discussion on current agenda items. If there is a disagreement about the agenda or the Chair’s actions, those objections should be voiced politely and with reason, following procedures outlined in parliamentary procedure. 

The Chair has the responsibility to run an efficient public meeting and has the discretion to modify the public hearing process to make the meeting run smoothly. Commissioners will not express opinions during the public hearing portion of the meeting except to ask pertinent questions of the speaker or staff. “I think” and “I feel” comments by Commissioners are not appropriate until after the close of the public hearing. Commissioners should refrain from arguing or debating with the public during a public hearing and shall always show respect for different points of view. 

Main motions may be followed by amendments, followed by substitute motions. Any Commissioner can call for a point of order when a procedural rule is not followed and seek a timely ruling by the Chair. Only Commissioners who voted on the prevailing side may make motions to reconsider. 

The Commission is composed of individuals with a wide variety of backgrounds, personalities, 

values, opinions, and goals. All have chosen to serve in a public office to preserve and protect the past, present, and future of the community. In all cases, this common goal should be acknowledged even as the Commission may “agree to disagree” on contentious issues. 

In Public Meetings

Difficult questions, tough challenges to a particular point of view, and criticism of ideas and information are legitimate elements of a free democracy in action. This does not allow, however, Commissioners to make belligerent, personal, impertinent, slanderous, threatening, abusive, or disparaging comments. 

• Honor the role of the Chair in maintaining order.
• Practice civility, professionalism and decorum in discussions and debate.
• No shouting, verbal intimidation, or physical actions that could be reasonable construed as threatening will be tolerated.
• Each Commissioner has five minutes to speak the first time, and an additional five minutes after each Commissioner who desires to speak has done so. 
• Respect the five-minute speaking time limits, and do not interrupt a speaker. 
• Notwithstanding, the time limits set forth above, the Chair has discretion to alter the speaking time limits, based on the length of the agenda and complexity of cases.

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Christina Wright and Cynthia Spielman

Commentary: Make neighborhood groups part of disaster response by Christina Wright and Cynthia Spielman,  For the Express-News March 3, 2021

We all knew it was coming: In the days leading up to the winter storm, neighbors started helping neighbors with advice on how to prepare for the cold weather and assisted those who needed an extra hand. We all watched the weather reports as the temperature dropped dramatically.

No one expected or had warning of the power outages.

The reality of it all came swiftly as the neighborhood social media pages filled with reports of the loss of food and no water. Ordinary residents performed countless acts of kindness for one another. After a week of struggling to stay warm in the dark and freezing cold, the first thaw caused countless numbers of burst pipes and a significant amount of damage to homes. Anyone that could help turn off water, add a temporary fix until a plumber was scheduled, or offer their services as a plumber, helped their neighbors.

Despite all this, the fear we felt for our neighbors who are not online, for our elders, and our families with young children was quickly realized. Those horror stories will be told for a long time to come. They needed help quickly.  

This story is proof of the generosity of spirit of which we are all capable.

 It is a story of the good that starts locally and works its way outward. An email from Ann Helmke from CoSA’s Faith-Based Initiative to Sarah Woolsey sparked what we started calling, Neighbors Helping Neighbors: “Research clearly indicates that the most effective and efficient method to impact community need is to act as locally as possible in expanding concentric circles…”

Thanks to Sarah Woolsey (Founder)  and employees of The Impact Guild , Beacon Hill Area Neighborhood Association, and Christina Wright (Alta Vista), and over 50 volunteers from the neighborhoods, local churches, Trinity students, TIG co-working members and their friends, about 175 neighbors were helped. Organized in hours, we knocked on doors to conduct wellness checks over the next three days, organized food and water, made deliveries, and distributed flyers. We solicited donations and Councilman Treviño and State Representative Diego Bernal provided water and State Senator José Menéndez provided hot meals.

Beacon Hill and Alta Vista were two of many neighborhoods across the city that bore the brunt of the power outages and broken pipes. It wasn’t until after the emergency that information started coming in from CoSA, CPS, and SAWS. Information that created more questions than answers.

There is a structure in place to help residents on a micro level: neighborhood associations. All of the registered neighborhood associations are fully accessible through the Neighborhood & Housing Services Department. But the system, or lack of system, failed us. There were significant gaps in the relief efforts by the city getting being accessible to all residents. But there’s an opportunity – neighborhood associations are connected on this micro level and with the support of city council districts can play a bigger role on reaching neighbors on a house-by-house level. But we need timely communication and resources.

The more local the solutions, the more effective they will be. 

Neighborhoods have proven their ability to rise to the challenge. There should be a structure in place in which neighborhood leaders are part of the disaster response. The communication should be two-way. Neighbors know what is needed and how it can best be delivered. 

Even in the best of times, neighborhoods should be encouraged. We should have a leading voice in the decisions about our communities. In times of crisis, the resiliency of our neighborhoods could make the difference between life and death.

Rep. Steve Allison, Rep. Diego Bernal, Rep. Lyle Larsen

Gentlemen:

I am addressing the three of you as a group for two reasons.  First, though each of you represents a slightly different political philosophy, you are all men of principle and integrity, and you have served the people of San Antonio loyally and well.  Second, having met you personally, I know that each of you acts with an independent, open mind for the best interests of our City – not because of partisan pressure from some Authority Figure.  Given your common interest and shared background, I believe that the three of you can and will work together to solve a compelling problem.  The matter at hand is of the highest importance to the people of Texas.

We have just experienced a very severe winter storm that paralyzed much of our City.  We experienced widespread power blackouts, loss of water in some areas, and a host of problems.  At the heart of these problems is the Texas power grid which frankly failed the people of San Antonio.  I am sure you agree that this failure should not be repeated.

Our City-owned CPS Energy is merely a part of the Texas-wide power grid overseen by ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.  ERCOT bears responsibility for the disasters we suffered due in part to its unfounded assumptions regarding the lack of need to “winterize” power generating facilities.  ERCOT’s lax policies, which victimized four million Texans, are partly due to policies set by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and ultimately by the state legislature in Austin.  It is at the state legislature, where you play key roles, that changes in policy must be made.

I understand from reading the financial pages of the Express-News (and newspapers published outside Texas analyzing our disaster) that the heart of the matter lies in the desire of certain Texas business interests to obtain the absolute cheapest power that can be produced.  As a consequence, ERCOT and several Utilities cannot commit even minimal funds for the steps necessary to “winterize” power sources, be they natural gas, wind, or other means.  The rationale is that “Texas winters are always mild.  We don’t need to spend good money to winterize because a bad winter will never happen and, in any case, winterizing will only raise the cost of each kilowatt hour of electricity generated.”  ((Although this rationale works much of the time, it did not work in 2011, nor this year, nor in earlier crises.))

ERCOT’s lax policies are underscored by a stubborn, unwarranted “go it alone” desire in the matter of power generation despite the obvious examples of northern states such as Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas – subjected to far colder temperatures than Texas – yet which experienced no crises due to ample preparation for winter weather.

We read in the newspapers about a flurry of lawsuits filed against ERCOT, to include possible “wrongful death” lawsuits in consequence of people who died, either freezing to death or because vital equipment such as dialysis machines failed during power outages.  Some businesses suffered losses due to disruption of production lines.  Firms in the food business lost millions of dollars’ worth of food when power to their refrigerators failed.  Power failures also damaged critical stocks of vaccines and other medicines.  Even printing, publishing, and electronic communications were negatively impacted.  This morning’s paper had news about a Houston Utility filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.  Attorneys could plausibly argue their cases against ERCOT along “willful negligence” lines.  After all, these disasters werepreventable.

It may be that some of your adversaries on the House Floor may object and say “Well, that freeze was a fluke.  It will never happen again.  Therefore, there’s no need to waste money on winterizing.  And we will not adhere to any federal power safety and security standards because they only just cost us more money.”  This pseudo-reasoning will only set us up for a repeat of the disaster we just experienced. 

You should remind these naysayers that the cost to Texas goes beyond the billions of dollars of damage inflicted due to lack of foresight, indifference, and callous neglect.  What business from another state or foreign country would wish to set up a plant or conduct operations in a state whose power supplies are demonstrably unreliable?

Pointing fingers or assigning blame for the disaster is merely a waste of time.  What is required is to fix a system that clearly is broken. The three of you, working together with like-minded colleagues from other parts of Texas, have it within your power to do this. The legislature can secure our grid in two ways — by joining our grid to the other 49 states, and by adopting federal guidelines for the safe and secure operation of its energy producers, especially as regards fully “winterizing” our power generating facilities.

With every good and warm wish,

G. L. LAMBORN

Colonel, USAR (Ret.)

Former President

North Central Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association (NCTONA)

Council District 9