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San Antonio City Council members may turn to a rarely utilized procedural mechanism to push back against what some have described as an overreach by Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones in her changes to the council’s policymaking process.
Jones shared a memo with the city council last week describing changes to how Council Consideration Requests (CCRs), the main method through which city council members develop policy and pass ordinances, would function.
One change would require council members to share their proposals with the mayor’s chief of staff, the city attorney, and the city manager before they can get signatures from their colleagues in support of the proposal.
In her memo outlining the changes, Jones said they were made “with our shared goal of policy implementation in a more timely manner.”
But at least three of her council colleagues don’t believe Jones has the authority to make such changes on her own.
District 5 Councilmember Teri Castillo, District 7 Councilmember Marina Alderete Gavito, and District 10 Councilmember Marc Whyte signed a letter in response to Jones. They argued that her proposals violate the current ordinance which regulates the policymaking process.
The three members, who span the ideological spectrum on council, from the most progressive to the most conservative, and who count one member among them — Castillo — who endorsed Jones in the mayoral runoff election, said they would ignore the proposed changes. They called on Jones to “go through the proper channels” if she wished to change an ordinance. They also called on her to schedule a full council meeting on or before Aug. 15 to discuss her proposals.
Council members led a months-long fight to change the CCR process under former Mayor Ron Nirenberg following many complaints that CCRs were being held up unfairly.
Alderete Gavito said Jones’ changes would set a “dangerous precedent” if the mayor or an unelected chief of staff had the authority to vet all council policy proposals.
“When we sign a CCR, a council consideration request, we have to get four signatures,” she said. “So, I mean, that's five council members. … The current process has its own natural checks and balances.”
And she said she was surprised Jones chose not to reach out to any council members ahead of the announcement.
“I wish [she] would have consulted us with this, because we could have easily highlighted why the proposed recommendations would not work,” Alderete Gavito said.
Alderete Gavito said Jones had not reached out to her office since the letter was sent last week.
Jones did not respond to TPR’s request for comment.
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Alderete Gavito said she and her colleagues’ letter was not a three-signature memo, a rarely utilized procedural move that would force a council discussion on an item.
But she said that it had been considered, and she didn’t close the door on using it in the future.
“I think we want to see if and how we can work through this with her,” she said. “And again, the intent would be to bring any discussion out to the open for all of our council colleagues to discuss. We want to work with her so she can be open to that, and then hopefully we can again come up with a solution together.”
Such a move could be a major challenge to one of Jones’ first acts as mayor if a majority of the council got behind it.
District 4 Councilmember Edward Mungia, a first-term council member but one who has served in City Hall for years, said he believed Jones could have rolled out her plan in a better format, in which council members could have directed questions to her and the city attorney. He added that he didn’t see a real need for new policymaking rules.
“I think it's a bit odd, and I don't know what was necessarily broken with the reforms that Councilman Whyte did, because it seemed to be working well,” Mungia said.
But he said he understands a new mayor would want to make changes. He also said he needs to hear from the city attorney about whether her move is legal before weighing in more forcefully.
Mungia added that it wasn’t clear what city council process there could be to push back in a vote since her proposal was a mayoral directive rather than a policy amendment that could be repealed.
The city council will return to session in August.
