The last six words of the current National Security Strategy, they guided me as the Under Secretary of the Air Force. We had big challenges and opportunities before us, and I led with urgency to ensure our men and women had what they needed to do the Nation’s work.
I feel that same sense of urgency when thinking about San Antonio’s future. There is no time to waste. It is essential that our city is not only a destination for military missions, but also for good paying jobs and safe communities for all who call San Antonio home.
We must work to bring down costs where we can, make smart investments in our future, and respect taxpayers by increasing transparency around how tax dollars are spent.
While there is a lot of work to be done, below are the actions I would prioritize in my first 100 days. When I say there is no time to waste, I mean it.
Our city has time and again made major taxpayer investments based on promises that were made–the promise of an NFL football team, the promise of developments that would revitalize the East Side and so forth. We citizens kept our part of the deal, but these promises were not realized.
In service,
Progress will be provided monthly and easily accessible on the city’s website.
I commit to monthly town halls across the city to hear directly from you about how things are going and what more the city can do to help you and family. We’re all in this together.
From my time as an Air Force intelligence officer to my time leading our men and women in the Department of the Air Force, I know a leader’s number one job is to keep people safe. I’m thankful for our first responders who protect and serve our communities, and I would work to ensure they always had what they needed to keep us safe.
As Mayor, I commit to standing with local law enforcement personnel to ensure their time and resources are focused on protecting our community against violent crimes, while working with federal law enforcement authorities to ensure our laws are upheld.
I look forward to working on other aspects of public safety that keep us safe, strengthen our economy, and contribute to the quality of life of our citizens, like better lit streets, more shaded areas, and safe mobility initiatives.
One of my earliest memories is sharing a queen-size bed with mom, grandmother, and sister in a bedroom we rented from a family. We lived there as we waited for our number to be called for government subsidized housing. Years later, a VA loan would help me purchase a home. Access to affordable housing allowed me to grow up healthy, get an education, and eventually own my own home and become financially secure. Affordable housing isn’t just a talking point for me. Like so many of you, I have personal experience in understanding the important role it plays in ensuring a secure future for individuals, families, and our city as a whole.
About 95,000 families are at-risk of housing instability in San Antonio, and about 55% of those households are renters. Rising property taxes are making it harder for families to stay in their homes and communities, while homeowners and renters alike face long commutes to live in a place they can afford. Housing affordability affects our entire community–from seniors on fixed income to those who would like to live close to their aging loved ones, if only they could afford to do so. As Mayor, housing affordability will be among my top priorities.
Our city’s trajectory is tied to the ability of our young people to move us forward. It is unacceptable that over half of our kids in San Antonio in grades three through eight are not meeting state standards for math and reading. We know increased access to early childhood education and childcare means better outcomes for children, families, and the community, because these programs mean higher graduation rates, lower crime rates, lower health care costs, and a better economy for the whole community. We can’t afford not to do this.
As the Under Secretary of the Air Force, childcare was the number one issue Airmen and Guardians raised with me–waitlists for on-base childcare were too long, and off-base childcare was too expensive. I led initiatives to ensure we were competitive employers for childcare workers and helped my fellow senior leaders understand that long waitlists were actually causing some to leave the service. Closer to home, Joint Base-San Antonio consistently has the longest childcare waitlists in the entire Department of the Air Force. So, I know firsthand that increasing seats for Pre-K for SA and increasing the supply of affordable childcare is not only good for our economy, but they help us remain Military City USA.
With property taxes increasing alongside everything else–from groceries to utilities–we owe it to taxpayers to spend their money wisely and transparently.
San Antonio deserves more transparency into how City Hall makes decisions, especially decisions that potentially require billions of our taxpayer dollars. My career in public service has shown me that transparency leads to accountability, and accountability leads to trust. I saw this as a young lieutenant in the Air Force when I served under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and I saw this as the Under Secretary of the Air Force, when I led to ensure we were making smart investments and helping our service members serve to their full potential. As Mayor, I will continue to ask the tough questions, push for the change we deserve, and ensure City Hall works for us.
Upskilling our folks is an important step toward ensuring our workers are competitive and financially secure, and that our city’s economy is strong. However, resources are not endless, and we should always be willing to review how well our investments are working. It’s also important that this program is working as it was originally sold to voters, and subsidizing the professional development programs within multi-million dollar companies was not how this program was pitched to voters.
As of early January 2025, the program was well below its goal of placing at least 80% of graduates into jobs within six months. Based on the Ready to Work dashboard, of those placed in approved jobs, 57% were placed within 6 months, while only 74% were placed within 12 months. That means nearly one in four participants that completed the program were not placed in an approved job after a year. We need to better focus participants to fill identified community needs to dramatically increase their chances of being placed in an approved job immediately after the program. We can and must do better.
I learned a long time ago that talent is universal, but opportunity is not. We can’t close the opportunity divide in our city without working to close our digital divide. From a national security perspective, I understand how important our cyber security presence is and would work to strengthen it. But, there’s a disconnect when we call ourselves Cyber City USA, yet a large percentage of households in our community can’t afford high-speed internet. That lack of connectivity means we have neighbors unable to take advantage of telehealth, free online educational resources, or even the basic resources that could help them find a home, start a business, or find cheaper prescription drugs. Below are the steps I would take to ensure we were connecting folks to opportunities.
