Questionnaire by GSACC to Jody Sherrill District 8
The Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce 2009 City Council and Mayoral Candidates
Questionnaire
Jody Sherrill
District 8
1. Economic Development, Job Creation, and Retention: How would you
encourage job creation and retention? Please describe the model/tools and/or
incentives you would support to boost economic development in San Antonio.
What are your thoughts on addition organized labor entering the San Antonio
region?
The best way to is to retain jobs rather than creating new ones. I think it is
important to expand existing businesses rather than bring in new ones.
Organized labor is not as bad as it used to be, but it has little place in the San
Antonio region. New economic development is best created through tax
incentives especially for larger corporations.
2. Emergency Services: Do you believe that the City of San Antonio provides
adequate Police and Fire protection and other emergency services for its
citizens? Please explain. If additional personnel are required, what funds will
be used to pay for service enhancements?
Police and Fire Services need to be beefed up some in newer areas of the
city. Some improvement in response times can be accomplished through
more police substations and smarter use of fire vehicles for emergency
situations. I do not think that we have the additional funds right now for
more personnel. And we need to remember that even if we have funds for
short term, any new hires would also need to be funded in the future (or let
go which is not good either).
3. Education: What role should local government have on education and
workforce issues? How can the City be involved in student mentoring and
dropout prevention programs? If addition monetary resources are being
recommended, from where will they come?
Local government needs to encourage the right kinds of training for job
requirements. This is really important at the College/Jr College level. I think
that the city and business communtiy need to take the lead in mentoring
programs. If done properly, these will result in low cost programs.
4. Water: What do you think about the status of water with regard to the
current drought? What is your plan to improve the quantity and quality of
water for our City and region? How will your proposal(s) be funded?
I am very concerned about the availability of water in the future. We need to
insure that we have inexpensive water sources for the future or the city will
not be able to grow. Multiple sources of water need to be obtained so that
we do not rely only on a few sources, which if compromised would have
catastrophic results.
5. Transportation: What transportation projects would you recommend and
support in order to alleviate our traffic congestion issues? How would your
proposed projects be funded? Please share your thoughts on the
recommendations of the San Antonio Bexar County Transportation Task
Force.
The best way to fix our transportation needs is to stop expanding outside of
the city. Our focus needs to be in filling in inside loop 1604. One way would
be to focus on rapid transit, but it is very expensive and I do not think we
have the density to make it work without a great deal of subsidy. Toll
roads are one source for NEW roads but are not adequate by themselves to
solve all of our problems. One long term solution is to stop building extra
lanes only to be followed shortly by adding more lanes to the same road. It
is far less expensive to prebuild infrastructure for future requirements that to
defer inflated costs into the future. I have not yet analyzed the task force
recommendations, but we do need one plan and not several.
6. Energy: Do you believe our municipally owned electric utility has done a good
job diversifying our energy mix, including coal, natural gas, nuclear power,
wind and solar? Please share your thoughts on the importance of each of
these sources.
CPS Energy has done a good job in diversifying our energy mix. Nuclear
energy is by far the most reliable. We need to explore more use of wind and
solar, especially as costs decrease. Wind and solar cannot solve our future
needs by themselves.
7. City Budget and Finance: What are your top five budget priorities for FY
2009-2010? What is your position on increasing revenue streams for the City
to address basic city services, such as streets, drainage and other
infrastructure improvements?
Police and other basic city services are of the utmost priority. Street
maintenance needs more attention. Drainage improvements need to be
worked on. Traffic signalization is number two as is gets the most bang for
the buck. Social services are lower on my list, but because of the economy
we need to look at where we can help the most.