At the October 21 Rotary Club of San Antonio luncheon, former state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte moderated a panel on what San Antonio needs from the 90th Texas Legislature, with Assistant City Manager Jeff Coyle, greater:SATX Chief Impact Officer Romanita Matta-Barrera and Greater San Antonio Chamber President and CEO Jeff Webster.
Van de Putte served two decades in the Texas Legislature, including 15 years in the Senate, and is now president of Andrade Van de Putte. Coyle works across city government, public policy and strategic communications. Matta-Barrera focuses on economic and workforce development at greater:SATX, the region’s economic development organization. Webster, a former District 10 councilman, leads the chamber’s work on public policy and military affairs. Van de Putte also noted that her husband, Pete, is marking 45 years as a member of the club.
The conversation covered three areas: what each organization will ask for, why San Antonio needs to tell its own story more loudly, and the pressure the Legislature is putting on local government.
What San Antonio Will Ask For
Coyle said the city’s legislative agenda, which goes to City Council next week, starts with protecting CPS Energy. It also seeks state partnership on downtown redevelopment, money from the state’s flood infrastructure fund, where the city has about 17 projects listed, and a long-term corridor on the South Side connecting I-35 and I-37. He described it as a Wurzbach Parkway for the South Side, carrying truck traffic to Toyota, Texas A&M University-San Antonio and the development around them that now runs on local roads.
Matta-Barrera laid out four priorities for greater:SATX: economic competitiveness, including the Chapter 380 and 381 agreements and the Texas Enterprise Fund that let local governments and the state offer incentives to recruit companies; power and water for projects that demand more of both; infrastructure, including that South Side parkway to serve Toyota’s expansion, International Motors, JCB and their suppliers; and workforce and talent.
Webster added two more: protecting the military mission at Joint Base San Antonio, which he put at a $55 billion economic impact, and working with South Texas partners from Laredo to Corpus Christi and Brownsville on infrastructure and water, including desalination. Asked to pick a single infrastructure priority, he named the South Texas Parkway, followed by flood control.
Telling San Antonio’s Story
Van de Putte argued that the city’s culture works against it at the Capitol. San Antonio is Southern in its courtesy, Western in its self-reliance, military in its discipline and Latino in its hospitality, and none of those traditions rewards boasting. Houston and the Metroplex, she said, have no such hesitation.
Matta-Barrera offered numbers to boast with. San Antonio leads the large Texas metros in wage growth, according to the Federal Reserve, and ranks first among 50 U.S. metros in manufacturing. The region has added 7,800 manufacturing jobs so far this year, averaging about $88,000 a year. Filling those jobs, she said, depends on reskilling workers as AI changes their work, from K-12 schools through universities such as UT San Antonio, now a top-tier research institution.
Pressure on Local Government
Coyle expects bills that would require a two-thirds vote to approve city debt, even though San Antonio voters pass bond programs with about 70% support, along with further limits on local revenue. He noted that the school portion is more than half of most property tax bills, and that the state could lower it by funding public schools more fully. The city raised its tax rate this year for the first time in 33 years, adding about $3 a month for the average homeowner, but homestead exemptions raised to the state maximum of 20% in 2022 and 2023 now save that homeowner about $325 a year.
Van de Putte traced how the Legislature spent years handing decisions to local transportation boards, school trustees, workforce boards and hospital districts, only to turn against local control in recent sessions. Coyle urged members to defend CPS Energy, which he said has the lowest combined residential rates of any major Texas city and returns its revenue to the community rather than to outside shareholders.
Asked what members can do, Webster urged them to vote, with early voting underway and Election Day on November 3, and to get involved through their professional associations’ government affairs committees. Matta-Barrera described local business groups meeting regularly to align their agendas, and greater:SATX joining economic development partners in New Braunfels and Austin on shared regional priorities. Van de Putte closed with an old rule of politics: you must be present to win.
