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Manuel Medina Announces San Antonio Mayoral Run

AARON SCHRANK/ TPR
Bexar County Democratic Chair Manuel Medina on October 29, 2016.

Bexar County Democratic Party Chairman Manuel Medina announced Saturday morning he will join San Antonio’s mayoral race.

“We need independent leadership at City Hall,” Medina told a crowd of supporters in front of the San Fernando Cathedral in Main Plaza. “We need a vision for today at City Hall. We need transparency and to restore the public trust at City Hall. You’ve told me you want a mayor that will focus and prioritize the situation on taxes, public safety and transportation.”

Medina joins District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg in the race to unseat Mayor Ivy Taylor in the May 6 election. Medina promised supporters he’d address dysfunction in the city resulting from “special interests and monied interests.”

“There’s a valid concern in our communities that the mayor is out of touch,” Medina said. “That she only talks about the one million people that are coming to San Antonio over the next 25 years. That she only worries about SA Tomorrow and SA 2020. Well, how about the 1.5 million who are already here. How about SA in 2017? How about SA today?”

Medina, 47, owns a political consulting firm that has done much of its elections work in Central America. The Torreón, Mexico Native told supporters he crossed into the U.S. when he was three.

“I’m one of those DREAM Act kids that we talk about today, and that’s why I will always advocate for the next generation of americans whose parents might have been the people that kept our houses clean, that mowed our lawns or that washed our dishes,” Medina said. “But it’s their children--the next generation of Americans--that are the doctors of America, the architects of America, the engineers of America and the next Mayor of San Antonio.”

Medina unseated the late Choco Meza as Bexar County Democratic Chair in 2012. His mayoral announcement comes on the heels of a banner year for Democrats in Bexar County elections under his watch.

Medina says he’s spent the last several weeks gauging public support for his candidacy. He’s contributed $250,000 to his own campaign and recently announced consultant Tom Daniels as his campaign treasurer.

Medina promised to address “generational poverty on the West Side, institutional violence on the East Side, transportation nightmares on the North Side, and a lack of basic infrastructure on the South Side.”