San Antonio city council okays $585,000 to promote climate action plan

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) – The San Antonio city council has agreed to spend $585,000 over three years to promote the climate action plan.

Councilman Clayton Perry was the only one to vote against the contract with TXC Texas Creative.

“Do we have to spend half-a-million dollars just to go out and tell people about this plan?  I don’t think so,” said Perry.

The District 10 councilman also was the only one to vote against the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan in 2019.  The goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make San Antonio carbon neutral by 2050.  Thursday, the SA Climate Ready Public Engagement & Communications Initiative was approved 10-1.

“We talk out of both sides of our mouth.  ‘Oh, man we need to help people out there, we’ve got people struggling out there, we’ve got people out of work, we’ve got people out of their homes.’ Then on the other side, we’re spending money on an ad campaign,” said Perry.

The council also voted to add two proposed charter amendments to the May city council elections ballot.  San Antonio voters will decide whether to repeal collective bargaining rights for police.

The police reform group Fix SAPD collected more than 20,000 petition signatures to put the proposed charter amendment on the May ballot.  There wasn’t much discussion about the proposal after City Attorney Andy Segovia told the council that Thursday’s vote was merely to put the item on the ballot.  He asked that they not get into the merits of the issue.

The other proposed charter amendment would allow the city to issue bonds for any public purpose, including affordable housing programs.

Perry was the only one to vote against the expansion.