Just This.

There is a growing consensus that Texas’ school funding system is broken – especially when well-run suburban districts such as San Antonio’s North East Independent School District are on the mat. San Antonio Democratic State Rep. Diego Bernal, who is vice chairman of the House Committee on Education, has recently expressed optimism that the Legislature is ready to address the problem. It turns out it is cautious and rather limited optimism, but optimism nonetheless. Give a listen.

Frost Tower, the first downtown office high-rise to join San Antonio's skyline in three decades, has reached its full height and will open for business next year.

Weston Urban CEO Randy Smith played a central role in negotiating the deal and selecting the world-renowned architectural firm Pelli Clarke Pelli and is overseeing construction.

In today's episode, he explains what went into the deal, what Frost wanted out of it, and how the architects – including one who was born a few blocks away at the Nix Hospital – approached it.

When prominent San Antonio restaurateur Viola Barrios of Los Barrios Restaurant was murdered a decade ago, her family’s passionate response was immediate and stunning. Literally listening to their mother, they obeyed the instructions she had given them over the years to forgive.

Throughout her life, Barrios had not only preached compassion and forgiveness, she had practiced them herself within her community and in response to an earlier tragedy, the loss of her husband José.

Today, Barrios' children contribute to and carry on Viola's legacy, honoring their mother with the enduring gift of generosity she instilled in them.

Rivard Reporter Ken Rodriguez, who covered the murder from its beginning in 2008, tells the story.

With the redevelopment the Alamo and its surrounding plaza at the center of recent public debate, I invited Lewis Fisher, one of the city’s leading historians, to share details about the iconic site’s past and ownership.

Fisher is the author of Saving San Antonio: The Preservation of a Heritage, a book dedicated to tales of the city’s strength in preserving its past. When the State of Texas bought the Alamo church from the Catholic Church in 1883, it became the first landmark to be purchased with the purpose of historic preservation.

When Nico LaHood, less than a month into his tenure as Bexar County district attorney, announced he wouldn’t seek the death penalty for a 25-year-old man who had killed the Bexar County city of  Elmendorf ‘s popular police chief in 2014, it seemed like a radical move. But this week highly respected District Judge Sid Harle ruled the killer was not guilty by reason of insanity. In this week’s podcast, Harle discusses the case and talks about why the law left him said he had no choice but to acquit Joshua Manuel Lopez.

One year ago, just weeks after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord, San Antonio’s brand new City Council and its new mayor voted 9-1 to join a coalition of cities determined to meet the accord’s goals for reducing the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change.

The first step of the ambitious commitment was for the City-owned CPS Energy to give the University of Texas at San Antonio a $500,000 grant to study the area’s sources of greenhouse gases and come up with a plan to reduce them.

This week, the Rivard Report’s environmental reporter, Brendan Gibbons, broke the story that UTSA has been replaced by a private consulting firm. Listen to the background.

A primer on the upcoming Mexican election. Sure “Amlo,” Just the likely winner, is a leftist. But he’s not the next Hugo Chavez. 

Harvey Kronberg has been covering Texas political conventions at the Quorum Report for three decades. These gatherings don’t nominate candidates, but as Kronberg explains, they have plenty of drama. The 2018 Texas Republican Convention kicked off in San Antonio on Thursday, so Harvey and I explore the dynamics surrounding the party and event. Why did AT&T withdraw a $100,000 pledge? Why is a reception for House Speaker Joe Straus an aggressive statement? Kronberg joins me via Skype to discuss these questions and more.

This week in Just This Rick Casey talks with Iris Dimmick, Rivard Report managing editor and City Hall reporter, about the latest draft of plans for remaking Alamo Plaza. A team of national experts, under direction from the City of San Antonio, the Texas Land Office and the Alamo Endowment, took steps toward addressing issues passionately raised by community critics when the first draft was released last year. But critics remain, arguing that the plan overreacts to adjacent tasteless tourist traps by turning Alamo Plaza  into a shrine and killing it as a vibrant center for locals. The new battle of the Alamo isn’t over.

In Friday’s episode of Just This, Rick and I discuss several high-profile runoff election races this week that most impact San Antonio, including those for U.S. Congressional Districts 21 and 23; the contest to replace longtime Texas House Speaker Joe Straus of San Antonio (in Texas House District 121); and the very low voter turnout in them all.

In the congressional races, we examine whether gender representation gains being touted nationally will manifest locally next fall in the District 23 race. Iraq veteran and former defense intelligence officer Gina Ortiz Jones trounced her Democratic rival, former teacher Rick Treviño, to earn the right to challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Will Hurd (R-Helotes).

We also look at an interesting race shaping up in Congressional District 21 to replace U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-San Antonio), who has long represented the San Antonio-to-Austin district but saw his support eroding before announcing his retirement. In that race, tech entrepreneur and military veteran Joseph Kopser, a Democrat, will face off with conservative Republican Chip Roy, a protégé and former senior staffer of several top Texas Republicans including U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.