Google Fiber
As the internet became a household item in the new millennium, the worldwide web became the go-to place to apply for a job, to shop, listen to music, connect with friends on social media and really, anything else you can conjure up.
And so Google, the mega-corporation that it is, is aiming to provide the fastest service possible. In 2009, it unveiled Google Fiber and in February of 2014, the company announced San Antonio was on the short list of cities where it might roll out the service. To put this in perspective, Google Fiber is, like, 1,000 times faster than your current internet connection.
But not much has happened since the announcement. San Antonio did join Next Century Cities, a group of 50 municipalities that are trying to figure out how to get Google Fiber faster, but we haven’t heard much else from that effort. City Council, however, did vote on a deal this fall, which would provide City government with access to CPS’ fiber network. The deal extends to schools and libraries as well.
Texas LGBT Couples Fight for Their Right to Marry
This year, San Antonio has been the epicenter in the fight for marriage equality in Texas.
The two couples challenging Texas’ constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage—Cleopatra De Leon and Nicole Dimetman, and Victor Holmes and Mark Phariss, whom we profiled in a January 29 cover story—met and dated in the Alamo City. The couples’ attorney is Neel Lane, a San Antonio-based lawyer for Akin and Gump.
In February, San Antonio U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia ruled that the state’s ban is unconstitutional, writing in his opinion that “Texas’ current marriage laws deny homosexual couples the right to marry, and in doing so, demean their dignity for no legitimate reason.” The state has repeatedly argued that it has an interest in promoting procreation among heterosexual couples in Texas, but Garcia found the state had no rational basis for its ban. Garcia also granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, though he placed a legal hold on his decision to give the state a chance to appeal. The case is now working its way through the federal appeals process and is scheduled for oral arguments in early January before a three-judge panel of the conservative U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. The plaintiffs and their attorneys had asked for an earlier hearing because De Leon and Dimetman are expecting their second child. Though they were disappointed with the schedule, Dimetman, nearly seven months pregnant, told the Current that they hope the court will make a decision before the birth in March.
While preparing for oral arguments at the Fifth, Lane has also asked Garcia to lift his legal stay on the decision and open the door for same-sex couples to get marriage licenses while the case is being considered. Garcia had denied the request in mid-December.
Nationally, conflicting opinions among other appeals courts have increased the likelihood that the Supreme Court will take up the issue sooner rather than later.
Uber and Lyft
In early 2014, Uber and Lyft—two companies with smartphone applications that connect people looking for rides with drivers willing to give them a lift for a little profit—began operating in San Antonio.
But Uber and Lyft were unregulated since transportation network companies, as they’re known, utilize new business models. Cities across the country are trying to find the right balance between innovation, competition and regulation. Complicating that process, taxicab companies have mounted aggressive campaigns in San Antonio and elsewhere in an effort to convince city officials that Lyft and Uber should abide by the same laws as the rest of the vehicle-for-hire industry.
As this debate began to take shape locally, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus issued cease-and-desist orders to Lyft and Uber, which the companies ignored, prompting indignation from members of City Council and from the taxicab lobby.
After multiple task forces tackled the issue, new regulations for TNCs were approved December 11. In announcing the adoption, City officials sent out a press release titled, “City Welcomes Uber and Lyft to San Antonio.”
But Uber and Lyft don’t feel welcome, and a week before the vote, officials with both companies told us they planned to cease operations in San Antonio if the proposed regulations were approved. Following the vote, Lyft spokeswoman Katie Dally wouldn’t say if the company would leave SA, but she urged San Antonio to reconsider, saying the regulations will make it impossible to conduct business in the Alamo City. An Uber representative told us that the company would try to work on the regulations with City Council, but if no middle ground is found, Uber will also leave the Alamo City.
Spurs Championship
Sweet, sweet revenge.
The San Antonio Spurs handed LeBron James (who has since returned to Cleveland) and the Miami Heat a sound ass-whooping on the court this year with their fifth Championship, the fourth-highest total for a team in NBA history.
While James went crying all the way home to the banks of Lake Erie, San Antonio pretty much kept its roster intact, and is on the way to another solid season. There were questions whether Tim Duncan would retire, but he opted for one more year of NBA power forward greatness.
As of press time, Los Spurs were 17 and 9 trailing the Mavs, Rockets and Grizzlies, but were also steadily closing that gap. We know that Pop won’t settle for anything less than first place.
Go Spurs Go!
The Julián Castro Effect
For every action there is a reaction, and for some actions there are multiple reactions that expand exponentially.
Such was the case when the U.S. Senate this summer confirmed President Barack Obama’s appointment of San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro to secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Castro was first elected to the City Council District 7 seat in 2001. After a four-year hiatus, following his 2005 loss to Phil Hardberger in the race for mayor, he finally won the top City post in 2008. He easily won reelection twice before resigning to take the position at HUD.
It’s too soon to gauge how successful Castro is in his new role, but in November he reported that the federal government’s home loan insurer, the Federal Housing Administration, which received a $1.7 billion bailout in 2013, was no longer in the red. (The shortfall had been a result of the housing bubble collapse that ushered in the Great Recession.)
Castro is seen as a potential Democratic presidential nominee sometime down the road, and his work in San Antonio fueled political momentum that resulted in his keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
In the wake of his departure, Council made history by replacing him with District 2 representative Ivy Taylor, the first African American to hold the position. It was Taylor who took Castro’s streetcar project off the table this summer after opponents delivered a petition containing more than 27,000 signatures to City Hall, and the firefighters’ union—involved in contentious contract negotiations with the City—piled on. The May 2015 municipal election will include a streetcar referendum.
Taylor’s nomination set off a round of musical chairs, from City Council to the Texas Senate and House of Representatives. Keith Toney was appointed to replace Taylor in D2, but he lost the November election to Alan Warrick. District 1 Councilman Diego Bernal resigned his seat to pursue San Antonio mayoral candidate Mike Villarreal’s House District 123 seat. Late this year, Council appointed architect Roberto Treviño to represent D1—at least until the May election.
When she was seeking the interim appointment, Taylor pledged not to run for the position next spring, though she has said more recently that a “groundswell” of support could change her mind.
Governor Goodhair Indicted
In mid-August, a Travis County grand jury indicted our outgoing governor on two felony counts of abuse of power and coercion. The allegations stem from an ethics investigation that began last summer after Rick Perry threatened to veto state funding for a public integrity unit if Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg didn’t resign after pleading guilty to drunk driving. When she didn’t vacate her position, Perry vetoed the money. Though Perry did take a now-infamous smug mugshot and was officially booked at the Travis County Jail, he did not serve time and pleaded not guilty to the charges. His high-dollar legal team filed a motion in late August to dismiss the case on a technicality, but San Antonio-based judge Bert Richardson overruled the request. Despite the felony charges, Perry continues to travel the country, with his name appearing on preliminary 2016 presidential polls—albeit he does pretty poorly. In a recent poll conducted by CNN/ORC International, only 4 percent of Republicans said they would pick Perry as their presidential nominee, but polls this early don’t always say a lot. Perry is the first Texas governor to be indicted in 100 years.
NDO Enforcement
This September marked the one-year anniversary of San Antonio’s amended non-discrimination ordinance, which now includes protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. In natural South Texas fashion, the debate over adding these obvious civil rights protections was infused with bigotry. This time, bigotry didn’t win.
The Current examined the amended NDO this year and found that it lacked an enforcement mechanism. According to Justin Nichols, an attorney who is representing three citizens who’ve filed complaints under the new provisions, the law has no teeth. AT&T, the target of one complaint, actually agrees. In several letters to the City, AT&T’s attorney basically said, look, this law doesn’t give San Antonio any jurisdiction over a private company and doesn’t provide any mechanism for enforcement.
City attorneys have told us they are working to address its shortcomings, and Mayor Ivy Taylor created an advisory board of LGBT representatives to assist in the process.
Abortion Law Devastates Access in Texas
Access to safe, legal abortions in Texas was significantly rocked this year, as the impact of the restrictive law passed last summer forced the closure of more than half the state’s abortion clinics. Another handful remain in legal limbo as the providers await a ruling from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The law, in part, forces clinics to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and to meet expensive ambulatory surgical center requirements, most of which are construction changes deemed medically unnecessary by national medical groups. The law also bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and places outdated restrictions on physicians administering the medical abortion pill.
The Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the state in the first legal challenge to the law, which took on the admitting privileges requirement and medical abortion protocol that an Austin-based federal district judge found unconstitutional.
In the second lawsuit, abortion providers and their lawyers are challenging the admitting privileges requirement as it applies to a clinic in McAllen and another in El Paso along with the ambulatory surgical center requirement. These two provisions have forced clinics to shutter statewide, leaving West Texas with no abortion provider and just one clinic south of San Antonio, forcing women to travel long distances for their procedures.
Once again, a federal district court found those provisions place an undue burden on women seeking an abortion. When that ruling came down, clinics that expected to close their doors on September 1, when the final piece of the law was scheduled to take effect, got a few weeks reprieve. But shortly thereafter, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit gave the state permission to immediately implement the law in full pending an appeal filed by Attorney General Greg Abbott. Overnight, Texas was down to no more than eight operating clinics for the entire state. Then the Supreme Court of the United States stepped in, halting the implementation of the law, pending the appeal, and giving the clinics that could an opportunity to reopen. Of course, not all could or will, leaving abortion access in Texas permanently impacted. The abortion providers and the state of Texas will be back in federal appeals court in New Orleans January 7, 2015. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood South Texas plans to complete a surgical center that will meet all of the state’s new clinic requirements by early 2015.
Thousands Ticketed for Homelessness
Following the short-lived (and short-sighted) proposal by outgoing San Antonio Police Chief William McManus to ticket individuals who donate to panhandlers, we began exploring how the City addresses chronic homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse among those living on the streets. We reported that the San Antonio Police Department issued more than 12,000 citations from January 2013 through October of this year—often writing multiple tickets in one encounter with an individual—for “quality of life” offenses like panhandling, aggressive solicitation, camping in public and urinating or defecating in public.
While more than 5,000 citations were issued for violations of the City’s anti-solicitation ordinances, more than 3,000 were issued for violations that are likely to occur if an individual doesn’t have a place to sleep. Indigent offenders can’t afford the fines associated with the citations, and because the municipal court that handles these tickets can’t escalate the offenses, individuals cycle in and out of the system. Tickets we obtained revealed officers sometimes write things like “too filthy to sign,” “refused to sign mentally ill” or “filthy-urine on hands” on the ticket signature line. Some homeless individuals told us during our reporting that they receive multiple tickets at once, aren’t given the chance to sign their citations or feel mistreated by the police officers, while the police department told us they are working with the tools they have, which are criminally based: citations and arrests. In an effort to find a more sustainable and civil-oriented solution that also prioritizes getting ill individuals help, the police department, municipal court, mental health probate court and other stakeholders say they’re working together toward a solution that would divert individuals to mental health and substance abuse services.
Republicans Clean Up Nov. 4; Leticia Van de Putte Runs for Mayor of SA
In yet another banner midterm election for Republicans, the GOP maintained its control of the top state leadership positions as well as the Texas Legislature. State Sens. Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte, two Democrats at the top of the ticket running for governor and lieutenant governor, fought tough battles against their Republican opponents, and despite the efforts of the well-funded Battleground Texas, turnout among Democratic voters was actually lower than in the last midterm election. Locally, few Bexar County area Democrats kept their seats or won their elections, with the exception of Bexar County Commissioner Nelson Wolff and District Attorney-elect Nico LaHood, who will replace Susan Reed.
After her loss to Houston Republican Dan Patrick in the race for lieutenant governor, Van de Putte quickly shifted gears, resigning from the Texas Legislature and formally jumping into the local mayoral horse race, which until her announcement only had one horse: State Rep. Mike Villarreal. Now, the two Democrats who have represented San Antonio in the Legislature for years (but have a history of just-under-the-surface tension) are duking it out on their home turf while Representatives (and Democratic frenemies) Jose Menendez and Trey Martinez Fischer vie for Van de Putte’s seat.
This article appears in The Year in Review.
