On the record | sept. 22, 2022 | commissioner pushing for more voting sites | season 5

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho. San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving community with something new happening every day. That's why each week we go on

the record with the news makers who are driving this change. Then we gather at the Reporters Roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories. Join

us now as we go on the. Hi, everybody. And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record. I'm Randy Beamer. And right now, with elections coming out, there's a lot of

focus on the number of polling places on Election Day, as well as other controversies. Joining us to talk about that is Tommy Calvert, commissioner for Precinct four. And tell us what the

latest is. There were not enough two years ago, and so the county was sued for not having enough Election Day polling places You expect that to happen again? In fact, you're asking for

it to happen again. Yeah. Judge Posner sanctioned our elections administrator for not following through with the elections law and as a result, we had in 20, 22,020 we have just given an

order of the court for the exact same number and 20 that we gave in 20, 24, 20, 22. And, you know, we have 1.5 million people moving into our county in the next decade. We have elections in

democracy very much and freedoms very much on the ballot. People on both sides of the aisle are very energized about this election and we have data that indicates it will be twice the

turnout on Election Day that we had in the past. Now, the elections administrator who had originally come up with 258, I think 258 polling places on Election Day, there are 51, we should

say, voting centers for early voting. We had to fight for that across the county. That was a big fight more than you had ever done at And now it's up to 267 sides. After you talked to

Jackie Callanan, the elections administrator. But there's still that's not enough. You think you're going to be sued Well, so in Judge Posies findings, she indicated that for

minority voters every quarter of a mile of distance that they had to travel extra to a voting location was 5% less voter participation. So we believe that under the Voting Rights Act and we

don't want to disenfranchize any voter. And so the commissioners court could have met a little bit sooner or still can meet in an emergency, but we don't have a meeting until

October 11th. This same lawsuit was filed about October 4th and heard on the 11th. So in other words, you won't have Jackie Callahan back officially to talk to county commissioners and

tell them. Do you expect her to add more polling places before then? I'm very I'm very skeptical, and that's why I've reached out to the civil rights groups and asked

them to go ahead and sue Bear County so that we can assure that we get this over 300 Election Day locations and make it easy for people to vote. Now, she has argued or said that in her

experience, especially in the last two to four years, that fewer people or more people are voting at the voting sites early. And there are so many more across the county and in the polling

places on Election Day, you don't have to vote at your precinct anymore. Well, that we call in statistics an outlier. So that data that happened in 20, 20 was in November where we went

down to 11%. We see in this and that was because the pandemic was raging and so people voted early. It's also a lot of energy around that. In this last primary we've seen the

numbers on election day go up to 40%, which is what it was pre-pandemic. So we're back to pre-pandemic numbers. She's also said that there are fewer election workers and poll

workers out there that she can get that it's hard And she had argued earlier that schools were concerned about safety especially after you've Aldi and if you have polling sites in

schools as we've had forever. That's hard. Yeah. So my response to her in my court was your middle name needs to be temporary agency. Whatever we have to do. Now, the good thing is

I've recruited some veterans. The veterans organizations have come and said, we will be election workers. I've also gotten school districts like Northeast Ohio, Ste, East Central,

North Side, ESD are all declaring an Election Day holiday so that we can have as many locations as possible. So all of the excuses really need to stop. We wanted to have the lawsuit come

earlier so that it would give enough time to remedy because we were not able to comply early enough with enough workers in time in the last two years when Judge Posner ruled. So we need to

get this started a lot earlier. Now, another argument has been that the elections administrators, not just here but across the state, are facing lawsuits challenging them for earlier

elections, and that they're dealing with that as well as preparing for the elections. Yeah, there's a lot more scrutiny over our elections, and there needs to be the transparent

accountability and responsiveness to it. You know, I am skeptical of some of the kind of outlying forces that want to examine the voting machines and all these kinds of things. I think the

best approach is to ask the secretary of state, homeland security, you know, our own independ and election analysts to help guide that process. And of course, there's going to be some

oversight there. But there are legitimate law enforcement agencies that are tasked with this, with expertize and departments of government that can be helpful to the process. But the law is

that anybody can inspect a lot of these records. Now, Jackie Cowan, an independent, you know, administrator for a number of years, is going to retire at some point. And she's also kind

of said that it's just a hard job that nobody wants to do anymore. Some counties, Gillespie County, all their administrators and three people quit and other counties as well. Are we

going to have trouble getting a qualified elections administrator after all of this because people don't want to be followed home that kind of thing? I don't think so. I've

heard from people who have expressed interest in running it. There's several systems that you can do under Texas, including having the county clerk operate that. I like the idea of an

elections administrator might be good to get some more young and youthful leadership, you know, to help guide us into the future. And and how about the politics of all this? Because County

Commissioners Court, if it went along party lines, the one Republican voted, it was OK to have whatever it was, 258. And, you know, across the state it's the same thing. We had the

state lawmakers, the legislature last year talk about voting. Is it politics right now? You bet your best guess it's politics because we have the browning of the state and there are

some people who don't want to have the access for this new demographic shift that is happening. And by the way, is more democratic. So it is absolutely a fight for access. And

we're about out of time. But again, Election Day is November eight. Deadline to register is October 11th and early voting runs from the 24th of October to November 4th. When are you

going to be sued? When the count again. I couldn't tell you that but it probably is pretty soon. You expect that within a week, I would think a week. All right. Thanks very much. You

bet. Your biscuits. Tommy Calvert is a new phrase. The county commissioner Precinct four. Thanks for coming in. Good to be here. We've talked before about how domestic violence is an

ongoing issue here in Bear County, but you may not have heard about a new court or fairly new court that it's called, or a flat or court created by the county court and law judges. 13.

Rosie Spillane Gonzalez, the honorable Rosie, thank you very much for coming in. Thank you for having me. Explain what this is to people, because I saw you speak about this very fascinating

idea the concept, and some would call it revolutionary and some you know, when you first came up with the idea, some people said, I don't think this is a good idea to deal with domestic

violence offenders, first time offenders the way you do. How do you describe it to people? It's a second chance program and the idea had been floating around for some time because as

an attorney, I had been a specialty court attorney representing defendants, particularly I started in Judge Alonzo's court. And Judge Alonzo is the godfather of specialty courts here in

Bear County. So we have more than anywhere else. We have, I think, 14. DWI Veterans Court. We have court. All of that Esperanza Court for sex workers. We have specialty courts in juvenile

court. We have specialty courts and CPS courts. So they all have a common denominator, which is substance abuse. And they're all regulated, for lack of better words, by the National

Association of Drug Court Professionals, which require us to use best practices and the ten key components. And it's different ways of creating a team, creating the court what we have

to cover. And so prior to being a judge, I was an attorney for six years, and prior to that I was in the social work fields for 11 years. And from social work to being an advocate in the

courtroom, it was the same populations I was working with. And so I have this anecdotal history. And when I decided to, to to pursue this bench, I knew that we had to do something different

with the issue of domestic violence. Because the numbers kept growing. As you know, we have the highest numbers in the state. We also are sitting next to a zip code 78205, which last I knew

was the most dangerous zip code for women to live in in the whole state of Texas because it has the highest number of intimate partner violence homicides in Texas. And so I believe that

victims need all the resources they can get their hands on. But how are we going to affect lowering the number of victims? We have to go like Desmond Bishop Desmond Tutu would say, we have

to quit pulling the drowning people out of the river and go upstream and figure out why they're falling in in the first place. And so that's up here is the offender behavior. Now,

follow me. Judge Alonzo just pulled me aside when I took the bench and he says, let's get the specialty court, court going for offenders. I've got some numbers for you. Two of the

most important numbers that really caught my attention was that 90% of the folks that come into that court as defendants were arrested under the influence of alcohol, cocaine or meth or

substance abuse was an issue in the dynamics in their relationship out of that universe of defendants. Almost 100% of them self disclose that they are adult survivors of childhood trauma or

childhood abuse. So this court is created to deal with those people and their problems. But some people were reluctant about this because it's like, oh, are you coddling these? These

are violent offenders. What did you say to them? Because that was there were some, you know, blowback at the. Beginning. And I said, that's my only option. That's the only people I

can control as a judge is the offender. I have the power within my duty, sworn duties, to change that behavior. And so one of the key things that we look at is the person's desire to

change. First time offenders really come in. They're very contrite. It's something they've never experienced before. They've never touched the criminal justice system

before. In most cases. And they don't want to carry that yoke of being a violent offender for the rest of their life. And also, as I understand it, the women who are you know, the

victims of the abuse and their families and generally are still committed to this person instead of everybody else telling them get away from them. They're coming. They're people

still say that to them. And the research shows that they return to that offender up to seven times. And at that seventh time, they either leave for good or they end up dead. So this

isn't the first this isn't the first time offender who would have done it the first, not second, third, fourth. Right. So the program provides that first time offender knowing what

we know about them. They're adult survivors. Trauma treatment, it's trauma based trauma, inform mental health. And then we couple that with substance abuse treatment. So

we've got we get them healed from the trauma. We get them sober and they can't graduate unless they're employed and have housing and we help them with all that. And the

program runs one to two years. And so what an easy program. And how fast they finish depends on the motivation of the participants. We've had folks that finish in one year lickety

split. We have folks that take the whole two years because they just need that extra support. And so once they graduate, then they're eligible for their case to be dismissed and

expunged. The expungement is very important. If you're labeled a violent offender, then it limits your your ability to thrive in all areas of life. You lose your ability to protect

yourself with a firearm or a gun. Or even carry ammunition. You lose your qualification for financial aid. You're not able to live in certain areas or in certain light. Leases for

apartments or houses. They can limit you. They say, I'm not renting to you. You're a violent offender, and that's not discriminatory. OK. The homeowner, the the landlord can

do that. And so it by law, if you have children, you cannot be named a prime area conservator to your children, so you can't get educated. It also limits a lot of licensed professions.

You can't have people to people contact once you're a violent offender. Imagine you can't work in a daycare. You can't be a home health care provider. You can't be a

teacher. You can't get into law enforcement. So there's all these areas in professions that you're cut off from. So you could be unemployed and educated. You're

resentful because you can't have the contact with your children that you want to have. You can't have a firearm. And so it creates this invisible cast of people that we don't

think about but are definitely out there. What we try and but it's also you you talked about trauma based. And back to the beginning, I've heard you say that domestic violence and

abuse, it's all the same thing, basically. And that 90% of these people have been abused as either teenagers or children. And that's where their substance abuse, their trauma comes

from. Right. Because you think about a child that's five, six, seven or eight and the parent or the caretaker that they love the most that they look to for protection and for

nourishment and for guidance and everything, it's their world. Is the person abusing them? And so what is a child of that age to do with their anger, their anxiety, other depression,

their fear? Kids don't come into the world with the manual telling them how to modulate their feelings. So they grow into the preteens and teens looking for a way to feel better. So

they start messing with their brother's pot, maybe their dad's beer, maybe the neighbor's cocaine gets them numbed up, gets them not thinking about their abuse. And before you

know it, they become an addict. And how many people have you had go through the program and how many have stayed and how many have been? We have six currently active. We have three classes

that have graduated ten to 12 people. We've interviewed over 50 folks that have been interested. We've removed about eight and so in and out of the program within the last year

we've had contact with close to 100 people, but currently we have six people that and we're looking at six to graduate in January. We have one paid staff and that's one case

manager. Lots of people I know we're going to ask about how much is this cost, who's paying for it, how does it work? So our first funder was Judge Nelson Wolf. He gave us our seed

money, a hundred thousand accounts out of his budget, and that launched us. And right now, we operate at about a $270,000 budget. And that also includes in-kind, for example. Jarvis

Anderson, the chief of probation, gives us two probation officers to help us supervise these participants. We have folks like Lifetime Recovery, and that also assistance with providing beds

and residential treatment. We have the Center for Health Care Services that provides mental health services. So it takes a village, and we have a village of folks that provide monetarily

about $275,000 for the services per year. Each of these participants requires about 20 hours of contact with our service providers every two weeks. And now this is something you had to

launch during the pandemic in 20, 20. But since then, it's kind of, I don't want to say sped up, but it's also gotten word of mouth out there, right? Yes. And a lot of those

words coming out. Coming out of my mouth. Yes. So it was the legislative session in 2019 that we, we filed our bill, the House bill 35, 29 that was sponsored by Roland Gutierrez and Senator

Menendez. It took an entire year to put that team together. So we launched in 20, 20 and then now we're 20, 22 and we've been up and running for a year and a half and it'll be

out. So we're very proud of the work we've done during that time. You'll have another graduation in January, correct? And it's roughly half court because it's all

about reflection, the people and what they did wrong and how they can change Well, thanks very much. Fascinating program. If you want to find out more about it, you can go to the

county's website. County Court of Law Judge Number 13, Rosie Speed, Alan Gonzales, thanks very much. Thank you, Randi. On the war on terror this week, we have the business reporter for

the San Antonio report. Joining us, Wayland Cunningham, talking about a couple of things we're going to get to the Paycheck Protection Program, millions of dollars that came in to San

Antonio and who got the most? But first, you had a story. I had a number of stories on recently about the flight from San Antonio and Kelly Field that wound up with the migrants in

Martha's Vineyard. They went through Florida. Tell us about that. You and Rachel, another reporter there, have, you know, kind of an inside story of how this happened. Right. Right. So

I should say, first off, that Raquel has been the one on the ground for weeks and even months talking with these migrants. So really, the credit goes to her My contribution to this has been

looking at how Kelly Airfield, which a lot of people understand as a military air base, got caught up in this political stunt. It might seem strange at first, but Kelly Airfield is actually

one of a handful of military bases where civilians are actually allowed to fly out of there. So it's both for civilian and military usage. Now, it's not every day people that

normally fly out there. We're talking usually rock stars and CEOs that have private jets. But in this case, the Florida governor was indeed able to charter a private jet for these

migrants private jets. We're talking about two there were two flights. We sure are. And now how do you even got into where the flights stopped? What flight numbers and that kind of

thing? And Rockwell got into the fees and how the people were lured into the flight. First, tell us about that. Sure. So, Rick, talk to a 27 year old migrant who only would give his first

name as Emmanuel, who said that he was paid $200 by a woman named Perla to gather up some migrants at the center and tell them about these flights to sanctuary states or Massachusetts and

get them on. So she was able to talk to that. That's not been independently corroborated, but there's been a lot of information that's been coming out recently about this

woman named Perla. Now, that's actually something that I believe the sheriff's office is also interested in right now. How did they get to Kelly Airfield and these private jets

that are usually used for charters out of the Midwest? I think in the Northeast? That's right, Randi. So these flights normally hover around the Midwest and the Northeast, but they were

brought to San Antonio the day before. You can see the flight logs, no tail numbers, record a lot of information and our track pretty closely. There were brought into San Antonio, you know,

scooped up some migrants and then went back to the northeast where they usually hang around. So they were a long way from home. And you even got into where they went in Florida, how long

they were there, they stopped. How did that work? Right. So the program that the governor of Florida has cited is one that is supposed to get migrants out of Florida. And so the flights, if

you look at them it's very interesting. They make a, you know, otherwise unnecessary stop in Florida before they go on to Martha's Vineyard. And that has left a lot of people

speculating but don't really know how that fits in. But, yes, they had quite a circuitous route on their way to Martha's Vineyard. And it wasn't. Just Florida, I guess it was

in the Carolinas and different places that the two jets stopped as well. Do we know what the people were told? Well, I think they were told a number of things. So when a lot of the migrants

that were Kelley has spoken to have told her that they were promised English classes, school for their seven year old, they were promised shelter. They were promised anything that they

wanted, they were told was going to be in some of these sanctuary states. And these are people that are legally in the country while they await their asylum requests. That's right.

That's right. These are people that are seeking asylum and these are people that are legally in the country. And my colleague Raquel has also wanted to emphasize the fact that these are

not people who are totally penniless and desperate. These are often people who were or some of them at least were highly educated people from these countries like Venezuela that have put a

lot of money to coming here. So, I mean, these are these are skilled. And those from Venezuela are more likely to get asylum because of what's happening there, at least historically.

They have had more success. Right. These are people escaping bad governments, unstable political situations and that sort of thing. Now, moving on to this other story you had, I thought it

was fascinating Paycheck Protection Program, the old PGP that we heard about for, you know, a couple of years, San Antonio. There's might be surprised at the people who got some of the

most money. What did you find out? So I found out that San Antonio resembles the national situation. So, you know, it's been over two years since the first PGP checks were rolled out.

And that time we've come to understand a lot more about who the biggest beneficiaries were. And remember, this was a policy was crafted very hastily at the beginning of the lockdowns

and it was meant to save jobs at small businesses. It did that, but it was a very imperfect policy. We found out that for every $4 we spent on saving a job, only about $1 actually went to

that. The rest the majority of the money actually went to households in the top 20% in San Antonio. The employers or others that they. Right. Right. And San Antonio, you were saying. Yeah.

And typically the business owner or suppliers, vendors, that kind of thing. San Antonio, the trends do indeed look like that when you look at data that's now become available. The top

PGP loans went primarily to large franchises, law firms. The top recipient was actually the boutique energy firm of A-Rod. Lewis, who is one of San Antonio's richest men. He's a

billionaire, owns the world's largest single massive yacht. Gas and drilling company. Yeah. Now, how did how did they get some of these? Also had more than the 500 employees that they

were supposed to have. But there were exceptions, carve outs for things like restaurant chains. Right. So even though the policy was designed to save jobs at small businesses, there were

many exceptions that were carved out. And that's very evident from these top recipients that I looked at. A lot of them were enormous. Franchise empires with hundreds and hundreds and

sometimes even thousands of employees. And so some of these also on here where the restaurant industry, I think Bill Miller, doctors offices new car dealerships, people might be surprised at

that. Right. Right. Those are the largest categories for for recipients in these industries. And we reflected what happened in the country. It's called I think it was described as

critical but flawed. Right. The whole program. Right. I think we learn anything that would change next time. Well, it's tough to say because we don't know what the next emergency

is going to be. That was a policy that was crafted very hastily. I do think that next time we might we might have some lessons learned. Yeah. Well, thanks very much for coming in. Wayland

Cunningham of the San Antonio report. Number of stories out there. You can check them out right now at essay report dot org. Thanks, Randy. And thank you for joining us for this edition of

On the Record. You can see the show again and check out previous shows as well as the podcast. Go to klrn.org and we'll see you next time. On the record is brought to you by Steve and

Adele Dufilho.