When the San Antonio City Council met in April to share their budget priorities, Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) listed several organizations she wanted the city to fund next year. One of those organizations, the Latino Texas Policy Center, is led by the councilwoman’s staff policy director, Natalie Sánchez-Lopez.
Cabello Havrda advocated for the nonprofit to receive $300,000 from the city’s 2025 budget.
That appears to run afoul of the city’s Code of Ethics, according to some of Cabello Havrda’s council colleagues — at least three of whom, like Cabello Havrda, are eying the mayor’s seat on the dais. But others aren’t convinced she technically broke any rules.
Sánchez-Lopez, who was hired by Cabello Havrda earlier this year, could financially benefit from an infusion of cash into the startup nonprofit. According to a proposal presented to city officials earlier this month, the executive director — a position currently held by Sánchez-Lopez — would receive a $90,000 salary. Sánchez-Lopez and the board members are currently unpaid.
The Latino Texas Policy Center bills itself as a think tank “established to ensure policymaking equitably impacts the Latino community.”
The city charter reads, “to avoid the appearance and risk of impropriety, a City official or employee shall not take any official action that he or she knows is likely to affect the economic interests of (1) The official or employee,” then the charter goes on to list other potential beneficiaries.
Cabello Havrda, a disability attorney, told the San Antonio Report this week that she was unaware of the potential conflict of interest when she made the pitch to council in April.
“I guess I didn’t see it like that,” Cabello Havrda said. “I can always recuse myself [if it comes to a vote] … I have no problem doing that. I think it’s worth it because I believe in the mission of the organization.”
The City Attorney’s Office “does not comment on private conversations with council members,” a spokesperson said in an email.
Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4), who is also considering a run for mayor, said Cabello Havrda’s proposal to fund her employee’s nonprofit is a clear conflict of interest.
“You’re not supposed to do that,” Rocha Garcia said, noting that she didn’t realize that Sánchez-Lopez was the head of the nonprofit until she ran into her last week. Sánchez-Lopez and board members of Latino Texas Policy Center were leaving a meeting in City Hall with Mayor Ron Nirenberg.
“That was just shocking to me,” Rocha Garcia said.
Nirenberg, who is serving his fourth and final term, said in a statement that he did not know Sánchez-Lopez worked for Cabello Havrda.
“My meeting with the [policy center] was arranged by one of their board members, not the staff member in question, though the staff member was ultimately present at the meeting,” he said, declining to comment on the possible conflict of interest.
It could be argued that advocating for such funding so early on in the budget process is not an “official act” as outlined by the code — but “even if it looks and smells like a conflict but not technically” a violation, Councilman Manny Pelaez (D8) said, “you should still err on the side of caution.”
” … [Cabello Havrda] is very smart and I think she would probably recuse herself if there was an appearance of conflict,” added Pelaez, who has announced he is running for mayor.
Cabello Havrda said she appreciated her colleagues’ concerns, but “I’m disappointed that I found out about those concerns through the media. I thought I had a very strong relationship with every council member. And when I have a concern about them, I go to them directly.”
There’s likely a “political motivation” behind the concerns, she said.
“Nobody has ever accused me of doing anything unethical. Now, there’s just a glimmer — a hint — that I might run for mayor and people are attacking me,” Cabello Havrda said. “It makes me think a little harder [that] maybe I should.”
Request for funds
On April 18, City Council members and the mayor heard an overview of the city’s financials and took turns highlighting their spending priorities for what may be a difficult budget season. In May, city officials projected a potential $10.6 million deficit.
In that meeting, it’s typical for members to name nonprofits or other community organizations they would like to see funded through the budget and for how much.
In her remarks, Cabello Havrda emphasized the lessons San Antonio learned during the pandemic — that vulnerable populations bore the brunt of the economic and health impacts.
“We also learned about our need to rely on community and nonprofit organizations to reach those most vulnerable, so I’ll talk first about some of the community organizations I’d like to see us fund,” Cabello Havrda said. “The first is the Latino Texas Policy Center, a newly established 501(c)3 here in San Antonio.”
She did not mention that her staffer ran it.
Cabello Havrda told her colleagues and city staff during the meeting that the think tank could “be incredibly useful to council, to other governmental and nonprofit agencies and really further inform and influence policies affecting those vulnerable communities.”
She also recommended $250,000 for Thru Project, $1 million for the Asian Resource Center of San Antonio, $100,000 for the Peace initiative and an unspecified amount for the 100 Club of San Antonio.
At the time, it did not raise alarm bells. But murmurs in City Hall about Sánchez-Lopez’s association with the nonprofit and a possible conflict of interest started swelling in council offices.
The San Antonio Report dug into the question of Cabello Havrda’s request after receiving a tip from within City Hall — but not from a fellow mayoral hopeful.
Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), who joined Cabello Havrda’s “Block of 5” council members that challenged the city’s transparency, said constituents and council members should be “on the lookout” ahead of the May 2025 election for such discussions to hamper council’s ability to get work done.
“I hope we don’t see a year where it’s: Half of Council is running for mayor and they’re all fighting and can’t work with one another,” he said. “That’s not helpful.”
It’s common for his colleagues to advocate for organizations they are associated with, he added.
Though he recuses himself from voting on funding for Family Violence Prevention Services, Pelaez is an avid supporter of the nonprofit his mother Marta Pelaez leads. Rocha Garcia is also an associate professor at Our Lady of the Lake University, which she has publicly supported but recuses herself from votes related to the University.
None of the council members reached this week, besides the mayor, said they had met with the nonprofit’s board to hear its proposal.
“I don’t know enough about the agency, maybe it’s a terrific agency that merits the merits funding,” Pelaez said. “[They] might have a good chance of convincing me to vote for it.”
Conflict or ‘chisme?’
For Sánchez-Lopez, what she called “chisme” about whether it’s a conflict of interest for her boss to advocate for her nonprofit represents the very thing she had hoped to avoid: politics.
Her focus is on meaningful policy, she said, not the “drama.”
“People are running for mayor and they’re trying to find ways to identify conflicts and any kind of drama that can drum up — it’s gross,” Sánchez-Lopez said. “My work with [Cabello Havrda] is as her policy director. … I have no interest in being part of her [potential] mayoral campaign or anybody’s.”
Sánchez-Lopez, a San Antonio native, moved back from Massachusetts after earning a
master’s degree in public policy and political and economic development from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a career in policy research and consulting.
“I came home to engage in policy and … try to make a positive impact,” Sánchez-Lopez said. She joined Chicano Health Policy Development founder Juan Flores and former Dean of the UTSA’s College of Public Policy Rogelio Sáenz — who had been considering forming a think tank for years — and others to create the center.
“The fate of Latinos is tied to the state of Texas, economically and otherwise,” she said. “It is clear that the trajectory that Latinos are on is not a good one. We’re not building our socioeconomic status in any significant way.”
Hispanics are the largest demographic group in the state at 40.2% compared to non-Hispanic white Texans, who made up 39.8%, according to U.S. Census data. White households in the state have three times the wealth of Latino households.
The city isn’t the only source of funding that the think tank is pursuing, Sánchez-Lopez said.
“We’re going to be open to all models because I think it’s risky to do this kind of work in Texas to be quite honest,” she said. “It’s really hard to get almost anyone to say Latinos are important and should be a priority.”
The Latino Texas Policy Center was formally established as a nonprofit in early 2023 to fill a gap in statewide and local policy research that centers the Latino population, Flores told the San Antonio Report. “Why we didn’t have a Latino think tank 20 years ago is beyond me.”
Latino Texas Policy Center’s planning grant proposal to the city includes $300,000 for two years that will be used to “identify city and state level policy priorities for the policy center, compile and collect data on those priority areas, and host community forums and stakeholder engagement sessions[,]” the proposal reads. “… Additionally, the grant will confirm the Center’s organizational structure, operational strategy, and scalable opportunities for financial sustainability.”
The think tank aims to be a permanent, year-round extension of the Texas Latino Policy Symposium and other discussions that have occurred in the community to tackle inequities affecting Latinos, Flores said.
“The key words are ‘building capacity,'” he said. The think tank wants to support more Latino-based research and collaboration between communities, grassroots organizers and policymakers.
The center has generated several reports on various topics including health care, economic inequity, immigration and education and partnered with the University of Texas in Austin’s Latino Research Institue to develop a fellowship program.
Sánchez-Lopez said she would likely take on the executive director position full-time and leave the District 6 office once the center is funded — if the board offers, but that’s a decision she’ll make in the future. Either way, she said, the policy work needs to be done.
“If we’re not investing in structurally just and fair policies and we’re not fighting to make those shifts, then … the gap between rich and poor, the powerful and powerless, will just get bigger and bigger.”
