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.