Scroll down to see the questions from the District 5 Candidate Runoff Debate, then click on the link to jump to that spot in the video with the candidate's answer.
The Westside Neighborhood Association Coalition hosted the District 5 Runoff City Council Debate with
Teri Castillo and Rudy Lopez on May 22, 2021. Watch the entire video here: https://youtu.be/dZtRYUl4Zo8
Opening Statements:
1. Studies are showing that our District 5 residents, homeowners and renters, are presently in danger of being displaced because of property speculation and investment in market-rate developments that is leading to exponential jumps and property tax appraisals and home prices. How will you help prevent displacement of homeowners and renters in our neighborhoods?
2. Homelessness is linked with housing, mental health, and drug abuse issues. Please explain your ideas for dealing with chronic homelessness while addressing the concerns of District 5 neighborhoods. Do you know how the residents and businesses in the surrounding area of Haven For Hope have been affected?
3. Recently a welding shop (that was constructed without pulling any permits) was approved by the District 5 councilwoman’s office in a residential neighborhood even after the health risks and the quality of life issues were pointed out by the Zoning Commission. What is your plan to protect and support the resiliency of District 5 neighborhoods?
4. How specifically do you promote home ownership?
5. What is your perspective on the use of city incentives for mixed and affordable housing?
6. In 2017 and 2018, the top 30% SAWS residential users underpaid by about 2.3 million dollars per month, a subsidy paid for by the other 75% of the users. The lowest 10% of water using residential households made the largest contribution of subsidy. If elected what solutions will your office provide to ensure a more equitable system of billing based on actual water usage?
7. District 5 boundaries incorporate much of the area covered by Westside Neighborhood Associations Coalition plus a significant portion of Southside neighborhoods. How can you best represent all of District 5 with its different issues and priorities?
8. How will you assure that the four public libraries in District 5 offer programming and resources like tech assistance?
9. How will you preserve the Westside’s cultural heritage?
10. What police reforms, if any, do you suggest?
11. What is your stance on a higher living wage for the workers of San Antonio?
12. Explain what you would have done to protect residents and create equity in terms of tests, care, and vaccine distribution during the covid pandemic?
13. What measures would you support to reduce the effects of climate change on our public health?
14. What kind of policies, if any, will you pursue to promote social and racial justice in our community?
15. District 5 is one the most obese and unhealthy parts of town and one of the most obese cities is San Antonio. As councilperson, what is your plan to remove these food deserts and to ensure that we have a physically and mentally healthy community?
16. We’ve had the same representation in this district for 8 years. What do you think about that representation? Do you think there needs to be change in how our district is led? What exactly do you think needs change going forward after this next election?
17. Why are we having to get developers, a billion dollar corporation from California, instead of getting our home-grown contractors here? Why are we not keeping the money here in town? It should be us keeping the money in the city. How do you feel about that?
18. Property taxes are a big issue because some of our residents are not aware of how to protest the taxes. There are residents that are living in depreciated homes who are paying taxes as much as someone in the Northside and they’ve never protested their taxes. What would you bring in to assist these residents?
29. Both candidates mention walking neighborhoods, but I’ve never seen anyone walk in my side of town. Why is that?
20. District 5 is fortunate to have universities within our district. Do either of you have any plans to align yourself with any of the universities so that we are capturing the youth of San Antonio to come educate themselves and hopefully in the end, want to give back as members of the District 5 community? There is opportunity to align with education mainly because of the facade of District 5 and because of the crime rates in the district. Do you either have any plans to work on that?
Closing Statements: