Nirenberg / SAWS /aquifer tax

**CosmicCowboy** · 01-17-2020

What bull . Moving the aquifer protection sales tax to SAWS will basically be creating a new "off the books" regressive tax built into your water bill to fund an already bloated VIA bureaucracy. Moving the election to May is a chicken way to try to sneak it through. Nirenberg is a ing clown.

A plan to improve public transit by rerouting money from a popular program aimed at protecting the Edwards Aquifer has hit rough waters.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff want to redirect $40 million a year from a 1/8-cent sales tax that pays for aquifer protection, linear parks and creekways to VIA Metropolitan Transit for better bus service and other transit initiatives.

San Antonio voters would have the final say, because they have to decide whether to renew the tax.

To clear the way for a vote in November, Nirenberg has sought to find a new source of money for aquifer protection but has struggled.

“He just seems to be all over the place and scrambling,” said Annalisa Peace, executive director of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance. “And it’s driving us nuts.”

Nirenberg and Wolff are seeking funds for transportation initiatives outlined in the ConnectSA strategy, which would create the city’s first high-frequency bus route with dedicated lanes among other goals.

When Nirenberg first unveiled the sales-tax shift proposal in November, he suggested the city ask state legislators for bond money to buy conservation easements that prevent development over sensitive areas that feed into the aquifer — a long shot in a Republican-dominated legislature hostile to cities and counties.

Then it was suggested aquifer protection could be handled by San Antonio River Authority with a property tax increase. But board members shot that down before Thanksgiving.

A few weeks later, Nirenberg asked city-owned San Antonio Water System to take on the program.

But the utility’s CEO Robert Puente told SAWS board members this week that preliminary estimates show the utility would have to cut the program in half, frustrating local environmentalists.

And SAWS officials are skeptical about assuming responsibility for protecting the aquifer at all.

Latest target
The maneuvering even has made a target of Pre-K 4 SA, the city’s early childhood education program. Voters also are set to renew the sales tax that pays for that program this year. But its board has asked the City Council to put the vote on the May ballot to improve its chances of passing — rather than in November, when it would share the ballot with the transit vote and a hyper-partisan presidential election.