This article has been updated.
San Antonio City Councilman Marc Whyte, who was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated last month, has been removed from his council committee assignments, according to a memo from Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s office Thursday.
More action is possible as additional details about the Dec. 29 incident emerge. City Council will meet Sunday at 11 a.m. to consider whether to censure Whyte, Nirenberg stated.
Whyte, who was elected to represent District 10 in May, was arrested after an officer with the San Antonio Police Department’s DWI unit stopped him on the North Side around 11 p.m. Whyte said he didn’t feel drunk before getting behind the wheel that night, but had several beers while stopping at three different establishments.
He declined to take a breath test when he was pulled over, and the results of a blood alcohol test administered hours later are not yet public.
Body camera footage released to the public Thursday shows Whyte telling the SAPD officer after performing several field sobriety tests, “Sir, I am sober.”
In the video, the officer said he could smell alcohol on Whyte.
“Please, I will walk home if you want, OK? I am 100% OK. However you want to handle this is OK with me,” Whyte is shown saying, after explaining that he lives two exits from where they were on East Loop 410.
On Wednesday, the council met in executive session to discuss Whyte’s fate, according to Nirenberg.
Whyte said he was not included in that discussion, but got the chance to address his colleagues.
“I stated what I’ve stated previously, which is I shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel on the night of the 29th,” Whyte told reporters after council’s meeting Wednesday. “Even though I did not feel intoxicated, I don’t believe that anybody that even has one drink should drive a car, and I apologized for that.”
At the time, Whyte said he had not been told what action the council would take, but said he didn’t plan to resign. Since joining the City Council, he has served on its Audit, Economic and Workforce Development and Public Safety committees.
“We’ve got to move forward, because there’s a lot of work to be done for District 10 and the city,” Whyte said. “Whatever the City Council and the mayor decides is something that I’ll accept.”
After learning about the censure vote, Whyte said in an interview Thursday that his council colleagues have been “really supportive” since the incident.
“We’ll see what they want to do on Sunday,” he said.
Whyte was elected with almost 58% of the vote in May, after many years of preparing for a career in politics. The business attorney ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for a state House seat in 2018, then served on a variety of boards and commissions before running for council in 2023.
His predecessor, Clayton Perry, did not seek a fourth council term after being involved in a drunken driving incident of his own in November 2022.
Perry was accused of fleeing the scene of a hit-and-run car accident after driving while intoxicated, and body camera footage from a police officer showed him incoherent and stumbling around his backyard later that night.
Details of that incident were revealed over the course of months, through open record requests and video footage from the bar where Perry was drinking that night. He received 12 months of deferred adjudication.
On the night Whyte was arrested, he attended a social gathering at El Mirasol restaurant where two other council members, Councilwomen Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) and Sukh Kaur (D1) were present. He drove Cabello Havrda to her home. Whyte also had drinks at Myron’s Prime Steakhouse and the Thirsty Horse Saloon before heading home.
Whyte is shown in the body camera footage telling the office he’s “coming from meeting another council member and a couple of friends.”
Asked what he knew about the event at El Mirasol, Nirenberg said, “Only what I’ve read.”
“Council members Cabello Havrda and Kaur apparently were there separately, but the facts are pretty minimal,” he said. “What I do know is that council member Whyte admitted to having some drinks and getting behind the wheel of a car, and he was arrested for that. So that’s what we know at this point.”
A blood draw warrant from that night said the officer’s radar registered Whyte driving 80 mph in a 65-mph zone. His vehicle was drifting back and forth in his lane, and he used a turn signal after he had already switched lanes, according to the warrant.
In the video footage, the officer asked Whyte if he had slept recently.
“I just flew back from Australia today, so I was on a 15 1/2-hour flight, but honest to God I’m OK. I feel fine. I don’t feel tired. I probably need to sleep, because I only slept four or five hours on the plane,” Whyte says in the video.
