City Councilman Discusses Challenges Facing the City at Trinity

San Antonio City Councilman Roberto Treviño (right)
 speaks with Robert Rivard. (Photo by Paige Johnson)

By Paige Johnson

San Antonio is facing a $985 million sidewalk problem, said City Councilman Roberto Treviño at Trinity University Tuesday.

Treviño spoke with Robert Rivard, publisher of The Rivard Report, at a Conversations with the Council event. About 60 San Antonio residents and Trinity students came to hear the conversation and ask questions.

Treviño’s main points: innovation and balance. “You can’t ask or request for innovation, you’ve got to demand it,” Treviño said of the issues facing San Antonio.

One of the biggest challenges is the lack of sidewalks and inefficient spending. Only 30 cents on every dollar spent on sidewalks actually goes to building sidewalks. The remaining 70 cents go towards ancillary projects, such as irrigation and landscaping, which disproportionately benefits wealthier parts of the city. In 2017, nearly $1.3 million was spent on landscaping alone, said Treviño. He supported a better-balanced budget that spends less money on irrigation in specific districts and pays equal attention to the lack of sidewalks in the city core.

Treviño also addressed community members’ concerns about gentrification in some areas of San Antonio, and the possibility of 1 million new residents. Gentrification is an issue across the country, and San Antonio is working to balance smart growth while encouraging a mix of home ownership and rentals. Treviño’s office aims to educate constituents on available property tax benefits to protect long-time and older homeowners from being pushed out of their homes with rising property taxes that accompany gentrification.

At the event, members of City Year, a non-profit designed to support students in high-poverty communities, asked for a renewed focus on investment into school programs that proven to work.

“It’s really important to the future of our city to invest in education,” said Kelly Hughes Burton, executive director of City Year. City Year tries to bring nearly 6,000 struggling students back on track. “We’re hoping to grow within the urban core but we can’t do that unless we have the continued support of all our stakeholders, and the city being one of them,” Hughes Burton told The Roar after the event.

Treviño mentioned the limitations of education spending due to the aging infrastructure and need to create safe schools.

Although only a handful of students attended, Alex Perkowski, senior, said that being engaged is a necessary part of democracy. “As somebody who wants to stay in San Antonio, it’s important for me to know that my councilman knows about the issues, is educated, will show up to things, and will engage with his constituents,” he said.

Another student, Henry Pratt, a Seattle-native and junior at Trinity University, believes that civic engagement is a responsibility that comes with higher education. “I was in particular really interested in how he was applying his knowledge and experience as an architect to some of the solutions to building code issues or zoning issues. I think the future is very bright,” Pratt said.

Treviño has served on San Antonio’s City Council for District 1 since December 2014. He represents residents from downtown extending all the way north of Interstate Highway 410, which includes Trinity University’s campus.