Welcome to the 2025 Voters Guide presented by the San Antonio Report and Clarion.

We want to make sure you have all the information you need before you head to the polls for this important third municipal election.

I'm Andrea Drost from the San Antonio Report, and I'm Randy Bremer.

And this election we will see a new mayor of San Antonio elected in every city council seat.

All ten are also up for grabs.

And as for election turnout, this year could be challenging because May 3rd happens to be the last weekend of Fiesta.

A lot of people might be thinking about partying and not politics.

Yeah, and among the many distractions, there are also many, many candidates.

We've got 27 candidates running for mayor this year and 59 candidates running for these ten city council seats.

And why is that?

This is a little unlike other Texas city of San Antonio has had the same $100 filing fee since 1954.

They've considered raising it in the past, but people didn't want to.

But there is a petition that if they didn't do that.

No one use that this year.

Every single person paid $200 filing fee.

But this is why we have a long, long, long list of candidates.

Where?

Up there in Austin.

You saw somebody made it out without even a run off this year.

And then some cities also have signature requirements where you have to get thousands of signatures.

We don't have that here.

Even there's the signature route if you want to get out of paying the fee.

But a few other cities do use that as a bar to indicate the seriousness of your campaign.

Are you going to campaign seriously enough to go out and get these signatures to get on the ballot?

That's the first time around.

There are a lot more money or a lot more signatures as well.

We're on the low end of the spectrum by far.

Well, hopefully people are going to take advantage of early voting.

And that starts April 22nd and runs through April 29th.

You can go to any polling location.

There's 46 of them this year.

You can find all of this information on our voter guide at the San Antonio report.org.

And you can also find more information about voting at Bexar County Elections website.

Bear.org.

Again, there are ten city council districts in San Antonio.

Definitely no shortage of candidates for many of those districts.

In the May 3rd election.

Want to take a look now at each district's candidates, starting with district one?

And this, by the way, is the order.

You'll see those names on the ballot.

There is an incumbent in this district.

Sitting council representative score.

District one, by the way, covers downtown, North and south.

Also runs north and northwest.

Then past loop for ten and Andrew again.

This is the first time in years that we're going to have four year terms, for the City council candidates as well as for the mayor.

Yeah.

You remember that in November, voters approved new, longer council terms, moved it from four years to moved it from two years to four years so that people would have a longer runway for their ideas before they had to start gearing up for a reelection campaign.

But that means the team of one mayor and ten council candidates that we elect this year are.

That's the team that we have in San Antonio until 2029.

So this is a big, important election because of that.

And it's also going to mean that we were probably going to have runoffs in many of those races with so many candidates.

If a candidate doesn't take 50% of the vote on May 3rd, then the top two finishers will advance to a runoff on June 7th.

So you can see in a lot of these races, crowded races are likely to go on to a runoff.

District one.

District one.

This is the most crowded race on the council races.

As you'll recall, Council District one was an upset victory for Councilwoman Core in 2023.

She unseated an incumbent in a runoff.

She faces nine challengers.

It's an enormous district that encompasses most of downtown and stretches all the way north.

You've got candidates from all over there, with very specific interests within that district.

You've got candidates from the North side who don't feel like they are represented by a downtown councilwoman.

You've got candidates downtown that want things that are very different from what the north side of the district wants, but this will be one of the most interesting ones.

It's off to an exciting start already, and likely to be a runoff now in district two and other incumbents on the ballot.

Jalen Mickey Rodriguez, who has served on the council for four years.

District two, covers the east Side from downtown to east, then to Foster Road and northeast past Fort Sam Houston up to loop 410.

Councilman Mickey Rodriguez was a council aide who won that seat in 2021.

He had a crowded race last time, but made it out of there without a runoff.

Is a crowded race again this time.

But that race is definitely on our radar, too.

And district three candidates also include an incumbent, Phyllis V Agron.

Now, this is a smaller group of candidates than many other districts.

District three covers the southeast side of San Antonio.

From Rigsby past loop 410, it stretches into the loop 16 zero four.

In some areas, the V.A.

grounds have had a lock on this district for a long time.

Her sister represented this district for eight years.

She's running now for her third term.

She's got a handful of challengers this time, but made it out without a runoff last time.

That district four is an open race.

This is one with no incumbent.

It's also one of two districts with no female candidates.

This year.

District four covers the southwest side.

That's runs from highway 90 there, Lackland to Port San Antonio out past loop 410 and ends near loop 1604.

Yeah.

So that's why these council races are so interesting this year, in part because we're going to have such a different group of faces, because four of these seats have no incumbent on the ballot.

Councilwoman Adriana Rocio Garcia, who's represented district four for the last six years, had some eligibility left but jumped over to the mayor's race, as did Councilwoman Melissa Caballo.

Habitat.

In district six and two other council members who were termed out many players and John Courage and their running for mayor.

So this is opened up all of these crowded races for these non incumbent seats.

And that person will get to hold this seat for four years.

So and so we're going to have a whole different look of the council.

And that's going to last longer than we've had with the changes over two year terms.

Right.

So choose wisely in this election.

District four has five contenders running in that race.

One of them is a former staffer to Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia, the incumbent.

And she's endorsed that candidate.

There's also a few candidates you might recognize from other races if you've been watching San Antonio politics.

But certainly one to watch this year and a lot of names that you won't recognize just because there are so many right now in district five that has the smallest list of candidates as well as district seven.

Now this is only three, including the incumbent, Terry Castillo.

District five covers the Near West Side from downtown to Acme Road and from Calabro on the north end to South Cross on the south end.

Yeah.

This is one of a handful of incumbents seeking reelection this year.

Terry Castillo, who didn't draw a ton of challengers, this near West Side district, she was a housing organizer who was chosen four years ago for this.

So she's, headed for a third term, third and final term this year.

Do you think the incumbents do have the advantage?

We always think they do in these races with lesser known names.

Your first reelection race is the hardest.

And so I think these guys who've been around for a few years definitely have an advantage at district six is another open race.

Now here we have eight candidates.

District six covers the far west side.

That's from all highway 90 west all the way out to 1604, including Military Drive and Grissom, and then part of Tesla Road as well.

This is the district where Councilwoman Melissa Cabello have it in.

Just jumped into the mayor's race in December.

She was sort of keeping her options open for a long time and that, there was a candidate, there was a field of candidates that was interested in this race.

Maybe midway through last year, but she hadn't announced yet.

And now that the field is set, it's an entirely different group of candidates almost than the ones who at first flagged interest.

But it's a big field and it includes a former councilman who's trying to make a comeback, Bobby Herrera from the 90s.

It includes lots of people who have experience working at City Hall.

There's a young City Hall staffer from district five is running here.

There's a woman who's been in District Director Vanessa Chavez in this district.

There's a lot of candidates with a lot of interesting experience and backgrounds running, because there are so many different candidates in moving or in and out of the race, it's also going to be a little tougher, you would think, to for them to get backing or for the people who are backing them to stay with them.

It's certainly tough to raise money when there's this many candidates as the as the council members running for mayor quickly found out, there's the same group of people that donates all of these people.

And if you're all running and stuff, it's tough to raise the money to run a real campaign.

That would do enough to get your name out there to voters, especially with eight candidates in a district.

So a lot of these will we will really be focusing on them when the runoff happens.

And that will probably happen in that race.

Now in district seven, just two challengers to incumbent Marina Other.

I think Vito district seven stretches from just west of downtown, up through the northwest side, out to loop 1604.

She picked up this seat last year as a first term.

She this is her first reelection race.

Won it in a runoff last year with backing from the business community.

Just two challengers this year.

As far as the incumbents go, that's really unusual.

And her name, authority has a history in San Antonio Ajo authority.

So again, the advantage of the incumbent.

But as an added twist, she drew a challenger who has her same last name this year.

Cynthia Lugo.

I'll direct it.

So there's going to be a little confusion in that.

Perhaps a field of six candidates are vying for that open seat out in district eight.

That includes one with an endorsement from Mayor Ron Nurnberg, and that is least Mason Gonzalez at District eight, covers a far northwest side from just south of Wurzbach, out I-10 to the Dominion.

Yeah.

Remember that this is the council district that Nurnberg represented on the council, more recently represented by Manny Pelleas, who's running for mayor this year.

And it's way up there.

It's kind of in its own world.

But this is the big leagues.

This race has drawn a lot of money already.

Candidates who are running really professional organizations have professional campaign teams in place and who have been running for a long time.

At one point, there was talk of Plaza's mom running for this seat, and that didn't end up happening.

But the mayor's chief former chief of staff, Ivelisse, is in this race and some higher profile people than maybe in the other race.

Yeah, there's an attorney, Paula McGee, who rolled out a huge list of endorsements.

There's a realtor, Saqib Sheikh, who's also raised a lot of money in this race.

This is certainly going to be one of the most hard fought races on the ballot this year.

And you'll probably see more advertisements and signs because of that.

There's more money.

And it's certainly an interesting district that has produced some future leaders.

And another open race in district nine that has seven candidates.

Now, district nine covers the far north side from, north of Castle Hills at the Stone Oak that includes some areas east of 281.

This has been regarded as one of the most conservative council districts in the past.

And yet John Courage, who is a member, has run for office as a Democrat many times as representative for the last eight years.

And so you're sort of seeing, even though these are nonpartisan races, a fight over the future of this district on a Partizan basis, in some ways, strong, a lot of interesting candidates.

There's a woman, Angie Taylor, our, guru, who is running for a state House seat before as a Democrat, Misty Spears, who, works for the Republican commissioner on the commissioners court.

Moody is running in this race.

This one is going to be also a big spending race.

And Crenshaw has endorsed a candidate in there who has a campaign team that looks a lot like her jazz council office did.

And this district nine, if it does swing more conservative would change a little bit of the balance because the other conservative district, district ten, district ten, produces the most reliable, it most reliably produces a conservative candidate on the dais, and has currently the council's only conservative Mark white in that race.

But nine and ten.

This is where most of the votes come from in the city.

So that is why, you see, Crenshaw, you had gotten out of the mayor's race, got back into the mayor's race, is still polling quite well.

And the only independent polling that we have of the mayor's race, that's why these races, become so closely watched by everybody, including the mayoral candidates.

You see a lot of activity here because this is the vote rich part of the city and the rich part of the city as well.

Yeah.

So we kind of ended with Richard.

Yes.

District ten, by the way, has four challengers to the incumbent, Mark white.

It stretches, north toward the northeast side from Austin Highway through Star Crest.

That includes Nacogdoches Road and Bull Verde.

Past 1604.

This is the seat that Clayton Perry vacated.

And, Mark white was the Northeast Neighborhood Alliance's candidate to take his spot.

Then he also had a a drinking and driving incident shortly into the job, was censured by his colleagues, but didn't wind up drawing as many challengers as some others.

This year.

Didn't have quite the political impact that we might have expected.

Mark white is now running for a second term, raise more money than most of the mayoral hopefuls earlier this year.

Kind of incredible.

Again, the name recognition there comes into play as the incumbents.

And they're not that many incumbents in the race and money certainly in this case.

Now what about when the mayor endorses people as he's done at some of these races.

So what do you think that needs this new for him?

He hasn't waited on the council races in the past.

Now that he is leaving the council, he has endorsed several candidates, including one in the open race is former chief of staff.

It's a big deal.

It's a vote of confidence for the incumbents who are on there.

And you could look at the results of the November election when voters agreed to longer council terms and higher pay, and raising the city manager's pay and raise, allowing the city manager to serve longer.

As all people were feeling good about the direction of the city and center in Briggs endorsement is, of course, something to watch for the mayor as Mayor Phil Hard Burger, former mayor, when he, pushed for pay for council members that also had an impact back in the day.

Yeah, that certainly impacted who is able to run for these seats.

The salary is changing this year from $47,000 to $70,000.

So that, I think has made life easier for some of the city council members, Councilman Mickey Rodriguez, that he's going to have a there adopting a baby this year or so.

And some of them had second jobs, unlike the lawyers who were on council who didn't have problems with money.

They said that some of the others needed a second job and that was a pain.

Yeah, it's unclear whether this will become a full time job for everyone on the council because of $70,000 a year, but it certainly perhaps opens it up to more people to run.

And the San Antonio report has a very extensive voter's guide this year where people can check out more on Ken's.

Yeah, I gosh, we've only mentioned about a handful of candidates out of 59 on this show today, but you can read about every single one of them.

On our comprehensive voter guide, you can see a map of where these districts are.

You can read about our past coverage, and you can also learn everything that you need to know about putting locations, poll times, registration deadlines, and how to participate in this election.

In all, 86 of the candidates that are running either for mayor or those ten council districts.

It's a labor of love.

Also on May 3rd, San Antonio fans are going to vote in a new mayor.

It's a major decision.

They could take our city in an entirely new direction.

From the past eight years under Mayor Ron Nurnberg, the candidate roster is pretty full, with 27 candidates running for mayor this year.

We want to go through these candidates and we're going to do so based on a new poll out of UTSA center for Public Opinion Research.

The poll surveyed 683 likely San Antonio voters, 35% who said they were undecided in this race and 20% said they were unfamiliar with all of the candidates.

Now it will lead in this poll.

Gina Ortiz Jones with just over 9%.

Then John Courage with close to 8%.

Many places with more than 5%.

The support, though, ranging from 3% to just under 4%.

That is Melissa Cabello de Beto Altamirano, Adriano Garcia and Clayton Perry.

And then from there, the percentage of support drops considerably to under 2%.

Tim Wesley has a 1.6%, and then someone else there phrase someone else that is at 1%.

That is also higher than Rolando Pablos, the former Texas secretary of state, who support was 0.8%, Arturo Espinosa had 0.9%, and Diana Flores Ortigas the same.

The rest of the candidates came in at 0.4% or lower.

So let's take a look at the top seven candidates.

Based on the UTSA polling.

First, Gina Ortiz Jones is a familiar name.

She ran for Congress twice in the 23rd Congressional District.

She lost a world heard in 2018.

She ran again in 2020.

Last term, Tony Gonzalez, who served as the undersecretary of the Air Force from 2021 to 2023, in the Biden administration.

She's a graduate of the John Jay High School and candidate John Courage is a sitting city councilman.

He represents district nine.

He has since 2017.

He started in politics in 1980 when he was elected to the Alamo Community College District Board of Trustees.

Now, as a councilman, he has one of the most recognized and most recognized efforts is the Weapons Exchange program.

He's been in San Antonio since 1971, when he came here for basic training at Lackland, another city council member running for mayor as district Eight's Manny Playas, who's been on the council since 2017.

He's an attorney representing more than 175 homeowner associations in his practice.

He served on numerous boards and commissions in the past, like the Metropolitan Transit Board, the North San Antonio Chamber, the Express-News Advisory Board, and on the board of Brook city Bass and Melissa Cabello.

Habana was elected to City Council District six back in 2019.

Her political career started when she worked in the office of former Mayor Ed Garza, and she also spent some time working with another former mayor, Lynwood Cockrel.

When she was at the Parks Foundation.

She is both an attorney and a realtor.

Melissa graduated from Taft High School.

Next on the list is Beto Altamirano, a tech entrepreneur who is running in his first election.

This year.

He has a master's in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and has worked in the realm of public policy in the Texas House of Representatives, the US Senate, and also in the Alamo area.

Metro planning organization and another council member, Alvarado Rosa Garcia.

It's district four from district four.

She is also vying for the mayor's seat, a first generation college graduate and her family, one of the first Hispanics to earn a PhD in advertising from the UT Moody College of Communications.

Her career has included and Minister of positions in a number of different local organizations, including Sam ministries, Project Quest, and the Southwest Independent School District.

This race has also brought a return for Clayton Perry, a former council member from district ten who took a sabbatical from the dais after a drunk driving charge.

He didn't seek reelection.

His career was cut short by that experience.

He's been in San Antonio since 1991, holds a degree in building construction from Texas A&M, spent 21 years in the Air Force and served on the council for six years.

Now, the remaining candidates, Sara Sonia Trout, Robert Melvin, Christopher Reyes, Jade McCullough, Brandon Gonzalez, Bill Ripoll, Armando Dominguez, Christopher Herring, and James Mount Melbourne, as well as Unruh, Fernandez, Vicenzo Herrero del Cristo Zambrano, April Guerra, Rama Michael Samaniego, Robert Salinas and Mauricio Sanchez, as well as Santos Alvarado.

And with all of those names is there.

I don't want to use the phrase crapshoot, but who knows?

It's just the top two that are going to go on.

And with the polling the way it is, we're really have no idea.

I guess it depends on money and name recognition in terms of advertising between now and the election, it's still early days.

This poll showed 55% of people hadn't made a decision or weren't familiar with any of the candidates, but this UTSA polling is the only public, nonpartisan polling that we have in this race to go off of so far.

And show that it's really still anyone's race.

And some candidates would say this was taken before it is conducted in early February.

Or sorry, mid-February, right after filing closed so they can get the first look at it.

They're going to release some more numbers closer to the election, but a lot of advertising and things have not started at that point.

But also, UTSA is, polling last fall showed most people didn't know who the candidates were.

Some of them didn't know who any of the candidates were.

Heavy emphasis on name IDs.

You know, Ortiz Jones is run for Congress twice.

Those were humongous, expensive races.

These were these races in Texas 23, which was the the hottest, one of the hottest races on the entire House map.

So people have, you know, remember her ads from those races?

And then John Courage, who is also run a lot and who's from one of the most about rich council district.

And we talked about those vote rich council districts, those council districts may support their own former, say Clayton Perry and ten monopolize and eight John Courage.

That's where the money is.

So we expect to see more ads from those candidates in those districts.

But big picture San Antonio has an elected mayor from outside of the council in quite some time.

And you had four candidates this year from the city council.

And then these three candidates who are not on the city council Gina Ortiz Jones, Rolando Pablos, but two also Marino came in and sucked all of the oxygen out of the room with the fundraising, put a lot of resources in there.

Just blew the fundraising numbers out of the water, and we're going to get another look at that again at the beginning of next month.

But some of these candidates, I mean, they're also going to split the vote for their kind of candidate.

I mean, those North Side districts could split the boat and, lose to somebody else from outside.

Oh, sure.

You see a lot of that happening right now, people sort of attacking the person who is most like them in this race.

You had Clayton Perry saying that Rolando published an get out of the race after his performance in that UTSA poll, and Pablo is saying, absolutely not, that I'm the only one raising money from the conservative wing.

And I've heard from a lot of people who said, we tried to get this person to get out of the race.

We tried to get that just because 27 candidates.

Do you have any idea who's going to be those top two in polls to get anybody to get out the ballot, is that there is no simple ballot available online.

And so, you know, the time to consolidate support was a month ago.

And the ballot order, by the way, how they're listed is determined by lottery.

And so there's no incumbent advantage to be at the top a little to help you make your decision.

Once you walk in there, you need to know what you are, who you are, intend to choose because they are appearing in random order that they drew for, last month, and there will be no party affiliation.

These are nonpartisan races, nor will you even be able to see who the incumbent is in these council races.

Now, some other things will also be on the ballot, from school board races to a big bond issue for the Alamo Colleges district.

That's $1 billion bond that they're asking for this year.

Also, voters in East Central ISD will have a bond on their ballot.

They had one fail and they're coming back to ask for it again.

And also, Floresville ISD will have a bond on the ballot.

We also have a bunch of school board races and other municipalities in Burke County that are hosting races.

In this May 3rd election.

They'll be school board races in Northside, Alamo Heights, Judson ISD, San Antonio ISD, Southwest, East I-s-d, Medina Valley, comm, all and municipal elections and balconies.

Heights, Fair, Oaks Ranch, Hollywood Park, Hill Country Village, Kirby, Leon Valley, Live Oak Park, and Universal City.

There would have been one in Alamo Heights, but they didn't have anybody.

They had a one person race in their open mayor's race.

So you may want to do some more research because of all the candidates and different issues on the ballot, and there's a place to get information about that.

More research.

We have done a lot of legwork over at the San Antonio Report.

Our small but mighty team has put together this really comprehensive voter guide with every candidate in every race on the May 3rd ballot.

You sound tired.

Tired, but you're not done.

Not done.

All right.

Well, thanks, Sandra.

Thank you for joining us for this.

Look at the May 3rd election.

You can find complete information about the San Antonio Report's voter guide essay report.org, or on the Bexar County elections website at npr.org.

I'm Andrea Rush from the San Antonio Report, and I read the paper.

And we'll see you soon.

May 3rd is election Day, and Clarion reminds you every vote counts.

That means your vote.

Your vote.

Your vote matters.

Early voting starts April 22nd and runs through April 29th.

Bexar County has dozens of locations where you can vote early, and you can vote at any site.

Want to view a sample ballot before you head to the polls?

You can find your ballot online at the Bay County Elections Department website.

If you need curbside voting, just call ahead to the elections office.

So the early voting clerk at your voting location can be notified.

They will come out to you when you arrive.

What do you need to bring when you vote?

Any one of seven accepted forms of ID such as your driver's license, military ID, or passport.

Don't forget phones aren't allowed in the voting booth and leave any clothing with political messages at home.

Need a Mail-In ballot?

The elections Department needs to receive your request for the ballot by April 22nd.

Sometimes an election can be decided by just a few votes.

Your vote matters.

Your vote counts.