Though City Council races are technically nonpartisan, three of the leading contenders at a candidate forum Wednesday night touted their fiscal conservative agendas, their aversion to onerous regulations and their relationships with state and local GOP officials.
One even told the crowd she was personally gifted a pecan tree in her yard by Gov. Greg Abbott.
“We already have a lot of regulations on what could be restricted on the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone,” April Chang , the candidate with a personal relationship with governor, said in response to a question about what kind of development should be allowed over the region’s underground water supply. “They would have to really show me why we need more, and the true reason and the data behind it.”
“I’m proud of my endorsements because it speaks to who has confidence in which candidate to get the job done, and that’s me,” said Spears, who grew up in Encino Park and ran for District Clerk as a Republican in 2022.
In response to a question about how she would approach the city’s bond program, which funds hundreds of public works projects through borrowed money, Spears suggested ending the practice altogether.
“When I hear bond, I hear debt, and we are in debt, and so I have great concern about issuing new bonds,” she said.
A third candidate, Daniel Mezza , touted a long resume of political experience that includes experience working as a district director for former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (R-Helotes) and as a regional director for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Mezza said he’d sought to exit the political arena but grew frustrated with the city’s leadership when he launched a coffee company and couldn’t convince them to do more to help small businesses.
“My experiences in the city, well, so far, they’ve been pretty negative,” said Mezza, who is on the board of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “The more businesses that close, the economic starts going down, thus the budget goes down, right, and our services decrease.”
Courage, who attended the meeting, said little about the comments made by candidates running to replace him. But he’s endorsed a successor in Angi Taylor Aramburu , whose campaign includes staffers with close ties to Courage.
Aramburu has a background in public relations and nonprofit arts management, is active in the North East ISD Parent Teacher Association and she was Democrats’ nominee for Texas House District 122 in 2022. She’s also been endorsed by former Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.
But her comments at Wednesday’s forum largely blended in with the conservatives, calling for a cost-benefit analysis on Project Marvel and bigger investments in public safety.
“I’d like to see more patrols on the street with reduced response times,” she said of her priorities. “I want to be fiscally responsible. We need to make sure we are spending our money as efficiently as possible, keeping costs low as they spiral out of control everywhere else.”
A fifth candidate, Emily Joy Garza , moved her family to the district from Washington D.C. during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But unlike the other candidates with high-profile political backers, Garza owns her own permanent cosmetics company, used some of her time to highlight her work in San Antonio’s animal welfare community and said she’s running on a platform of prioritizing “community confidence.”
“What that means is making sure that our community is prepared when it comes to things like fires, freezes, emergency responses, making sure that our police officers have attractive careers that we can also retain our police officers,” she said.
Two District 9 candidates were not in attendance: Celeste Tidwell , a former Democratic precinct chair who has run for office before in District 10, and Tristen Hoffman , a high school senior who plans to study economics.
Early voting runs April 22 through April 29 for the May 3 election.
If no candidate takes at least 50% of the vote on May 3, the top two finishers will advance to a June 7 runoff.
