Current mayor Ron Nirenberg has served his four two-year terms and is no longer eligible to seek reelection. On May 3, San Antonio will take the first step in electing its new mayor, and if no candidate reaches the 50% necessary to win, there will be a runoff election on June 7.
There are currently 27 candidates vying for the office. It will be the first time that a San Antonio mayoral candidate will be elected for a four-year term, with the possibility of two four-year terms, resulting from the November election’s Proposition F. The crowded ballot ranges from political newcomers to San Antonio City Council Members.
Beto Altamirano
Twenty seven candidates is, of course, more than a couple. According to fundraising report from the last half of 2024, the top-funded candidate is tech entrepreneur Beto Altamirano, who raised over $200,000 for his campaign. Altamirano, a South Texas native, is the CEO and co-founder of Irys Technologies, the company behind the City of San Antonio 311 app.
What is the number one thing you want to accomplish as mayor?
“I have three goals, right? Job creation, crime and infrastructure. Those are the three issues that I’m prioritizing … So, good paying jobs for future generations in San Antonio, our students that are deciding to stay in San Antonio, and those are linked to the emerging trends that we have in our economy, like cybersecurity, like bioscience, advanced manufacturing and aerospace. Good paying jobs mean a better economy. But also I want to keep our streets safe, and I also want to have great infrastructure so that our quality of life in San Antonio can thrive.”
A key part of your Plan 210 is crime and public safety. Can you get specific about what you’re hoping to do when it comes to public safety in San Antonio?
“We have to increase and support our response times whenever we are facing adversity in the form of crime in San Antonio. So what does that mean? We need to support our community oriented policing efforts. So that means supporting SAFFE officers throughout San Antonio … SAFFE officers is the San Antonio Fear Free Environment officers, and they are tasked with the responsibility of engaging with neighborhood associations, of understanding the root cause of crime throughout the city and the neighborhoods, and they are the first line of duty that truly gets to experience and gain knowledge of what’s happening at the ground level in San Antonio.”
How has your time working in tech influenced your mayoral goals and campaign?
“For almost 10 years, I partner with the city of San Antonio and their 311 department, which is in charge of fixing potholes and lighting infrastructure issues that you see in the city. Non-emergency items. They are not 911 related. And so for almost 10 years I’ve been working on fixing all these issues that we see in our city, but I’ve been doing so with the use of technology. In this process, I’ve gotten to work closely with the city and learn about the challenges that the city faces internally. But I think my expertise lies in the experience of leading an enterprise and scaling that enterprise to over 75 employees. And that takes leadership.”
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about Project Marvel and how that fits into your campaign and mayoral goals?
“When you look at Project Marvel, I think there’s a huge potential there in terms of what it represents, and it could be a face lift to downtown and San Antonio … We cannot ignore the conversations and the promises that were made to the Eastside of San Antonio. So when I think about the Eastside of San Antonio, I want to revisit those promises that were made. And so if we’re going to move the Spurs from the Frost Center on the Eastside to downtown, we have to have a plan of action as we move forward as to how we will continue to stimulate the economy of the Eastside of San Antonio.”
What has the campaigning process been like for you? Do you have a favorite and least favorite part?
“One of my favorite parts of the campaign was that we launched a listening tour across the city. So we visited every corner of the city: the Southside, the Eastside, the Westside, downtown, northwest, northeast. And we had the experience of listening directly from the people of San Antonio. And all those conversations, all those engagements were part of a unique experience that I will always, always, always cherish … Campaigns are also challenging, right? And so you gotta be constantly reinventing yourself and pacing yourself.”
Gina Ortiz Jones
Gina Ortiz Jones has been the Democratic nominee for the 23rd congressional district of Texas twice. While she lost to incumbent Will Hurd in 2018 and Tony Gonzalez in 2020, she was nominated by former president Joe Biden to be the Under Secretary of the Air Force in 2021, a role she held until 2023.
What is the number one thing you want to accomplish as mayor?
“I don’t know if there’s just one, because, as you know, some of our challenges are really interconnected. I would argue the fact that half of the kids in our community in grades three through eight, the fact they are not reading at level, nor are their math skills at level, to me, as important as that is, the fact that we’ve got 95,000 working families that are housing unsecure. We’ve got roughly 67,000 folks that are on a waiting list for affordable housing. And I’ll be honest with you, we also don’t, as a community, have nearly enough information or transparency about what could potentially be a billions dollar, that’s plural, billions dollar investment downtown … I do think we have to have a plan to be able to focus our energy and our resources, which is why I put a plan together.”
“There is no time to waste” is a guiding slogan on your website. Please expand on what you mean by that.
“I think when you say there’s no time to waste, that also means there’s no talent waste, right? I feel that same sense of urgency when I think about the challenges and opportunities that we have here, here at home, right here in my hometown … The data is very clear. We’ve got the resources, we’ve got the talent and now we need good leadership to move us forward, and I look forward to providing that.”
Can you explain how Project Marvel fits into your campaign and mayoral goals?
“I like bold, ambitious projects and things that make sense for our community. And it’s really hard to have an assessment on that project at this point, because there hasn’t been a lot of details about it, in particular about how our community would pay for it … I love our Spurs. I think we’re all very proud of our Spurs. I think it’s important, though, that we also look at this investment in the context of history and recognize that we need to have more information, frankly, sooner rather than later, so we can have an informed discussion about our community’s priorities and our community’s needs.”
What has the campaigning process been like for you? Do you have a favorite and least favorite part?
“I am very encouraged when I see young people engaged and interested in the process. I mean, our country, our democracy, is not an observer sport. It’s a participatory sport, right? People have to be engaged. They have to know what’s going on. And again, I would argue, the things that are happening in our local community are as important as the things that are happening at the state and federal level … I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think about the best and worst parts of this. I ultimately think about ‘What is the prize here?’ And the prize is making sure our city moves forward, and that’s going to require good leadership.”
Manny Palaez
Manny Palaez has served as San Antonio’s District 8 city council member since 2017. A Trinity alumnus, Palaez said that if Trinity teaches you anything, it’s that small goals that are unacceptable.
What is the number one thing you want to accomplish as mayor?
“I want people to fall in love with their city with the same zeal and passion with which I’ve fallen in love with my city … I don’t want to be led by a mayor who is inspiring people to think less of themselves. I want to be led by a mayor who is telling everybody your potential is limitless, and I want to be a part of your success story.”
“Safer, Stronger, Smarter” seems to be the guiding slogan of your campaign. What do each of these principles mean for your campaign and potential tenure as mayor?
“I look at those three feelings, right, that we’re not safe and we’re not smart and we’re not strong, and I started thinking to myself, you know, what do I want for my children? … I don’t want a city that is led by somebody who wants to make incremental changes every year without a goal that’s stated, right? Here’s what I want: I think San Antonio has reached an inflection point in the history of our existence, and we have a choice, either we can continue making these incremental gains, or we can declare once or for all that we are going to be the safest city in the United States. Yeah, we’re gonna be the strongest city in the US, that we’re gonna be the smartest city on the planet. I think those are reasonable goals.”
How does Project Marvel fit into these goals?
“I think San Antonio merits the same wonderful things that all the other great cities of the world merit. Why not? Why not us? Now I look at our downtown, and to be honest with you, there’s a lot missing. We could be much more vibrant … We all know at city hall that the public’s not excited [about Project Marvel], and there is no city in the history of humanity where the public has gotten excited about having the municipal funds help go towards a professional sports team … This is something that all major cities struggle with, and it’s a pill you got to swallow if you want to be a city that provides quality of life, vibrant downtowns and, you know, opportunity for leisure and entertainment for your populace … The Spurs will leave if we do not partner with them and build a stadium. That would be a catastrophic loss to San Antonio, not just economically, but a catastrophic loss to us reputationally.”
What has the campaign process been like, and what has been your favorite and least favorite part of campaigning?
“One thing that I learned at Trinity is that community is not a noun, it’s actually a verb, and that community only exists when people do community. And what is really inspiring is getting to visit every corner of the city and seeing community unfolding in front of me. It’s really a wonderful thing when you intentionally stop to observe community at work … It’s exhausting, right? … They don’t call it work for nothing.”
Rolando Pablos
Former secretary of state Rolando Pablos is also running for the mayoral candidacy. On Monday, Pablos’ name was drawn first in the random drawing for the ballot’s list of choices, so his name will appear at the top of every ballot.
What is the number one thing you want to accomplish as mayor?
“I would hope that we can start the process of eradicating poverty. We’ve had poverty for way too long … I think that we need to, once and for all, take that challenge and run with it, and not kick the can down the road like we have been. It’s a very serious problem. That’s the root of all of our problems. I mean, if you look at crime, homelessness, all those things, they’re rooted in poverty. I’d like to be able to use aggressive economic development to be able to bring quality investment that will create quality jobs and hopefully bring in good, well paying jobs and paychecks. So I think that focusing on on the root causes of poverty should really be a priority.”
On your website, public safety is listed as a top priority. Please expand on what this means for your potential tenure as mayor.
“Public safety is part of those things that companies look at when they’re trying to invest in a city. You know, we’re a big city with big city problems, but if they perceive us as being a dangerous city or city that has its crime not under control, then that’s a demerit on us …And you know, companies will go somewhere else. But most importantly, I think what we need to do is we need to fund police first, fund our fire department first. We need to make sure that they have the resources they need to be able to fill those jobs that they haven’t been able to fill.”
Do you have one specific step in mind to increase economic development?
“In order to be able to attract companies, we have to become attractive to companies. And right now, the sad reality is that San Antonio is viewed as anti-business. When investors are looking to come to Texas, they look at our community, and the first thing they look at is their municipal government, and they determine whether the municipal government is going to be welcoming or not. Right now, the reputation that we’ve developed is that we’re not business friendly … Educational under-attainment has also been a consistent and pervasive problem for our city, so we need to focus on making sure that we educate our kids and those that are beyond high school education, that they get the skills training that they need, so that we can provide an ample pipeline of qualified workers, so that these companies feel like they can come here and have those things that they need to be successful.”
Could you discuss Project Marvel and how that fits into your campaign and mayoral goals?
“What I tell people about that is we have a very simple question to ask ourselves, do we want to keep the Spurs, or do we want to lose them to some other big city with billionaires in them that don’t have an NBA franchise? So if the answer to that question is we want to keep them, then we have to work with them to make sure that we provide them the facilities that they’re looking for. Now I wouldn’t expect the public to pay for it all. I envision a public-private partnership … Right now, I think Project Marvel is a little over the top. We need to focus on what’s important, which is the arena, and then allow the private sector to come in.”
Do you have a favorite and least favorite part of the campaign process?
“Obviously, the most frustrating part is that I don’t get to spend as much time with my family, because I’m always out and about … I think the coolest thing is, you know, I’m getting to meet so many great people and understanding what their dreams are for San Antonio, and it’s just one of the greatest experiences of my life.”
