By my count, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff is 29-2 with voters over an unprecedented political career that spans five decades and is unlikely to be equaled by any other public official in my lifetime.
Former San Antonio Mayor and HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros has held public office and otherwise been engaged in public service since the 1970s, too, but his election victories were limited to his time as a city councilman and then mayor.
Wolff has been elected to the Texas House and Senate, as the District 8 councilman, as San Antonio mayor, and as county judge — the latter office six times. He fell short in two unsuccessful runs for Congress in the late 1970s.
I had the easy assignment and privilege of moderating an hourlong, on-stage conversation with Wolff at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, the keynote event of the San Antonio Report’s fifth annual CityFest. A full house was there to listen and to give Wolff a standing ovation at the end. Tracy Wolff, also in attendance, received her own sustained applause in recognition of her high profile work alongside her husband.
“Tracy made us two new friends for every enemy I made,” Wolff quipped as he praised Tracy for her work with children, the establishment of the Bibliotech digital libraries and restoration of the historic Bexar County Courthouse.
The turnout was impressive given that the Northside and Hispanic chambers of commerce co-sponsored a Wednesday luncheon debate between the two candidates seeking the office Wolff will vacate in January, Democrat and former state district judge Peter Sakai and Republican and former county commissioner Trish DeBerry.
His successor will have big shoes to fill.
Wolff ranged widely in his reminiscences of key projects he has undertaken over the course of his career, from the construction and opening of the Alamodome during his first mayoral term, to the San Antonio River Improvement Project and opening of the Mission Reach in his time as county judge, and most recently, completion of the first two phases of the San Pedro Creek Improvement Project, which will be officially celebrated on Oct. 14.
Wolff found time over those five decades to write eight books, including one devoted to his lifelong love of baseball and the art of playing the sport as a senior citizen. He regrets that no agreement has been reached to build a new downtown ballpark for the San Antonio Missions, who currently play in a stadium bearing his name 8 miles west of downtown.
Weston Urban is said to be working on a plan to piece together enough acreage along San Pedro Creek for a new ballpark, and Wolff said another group that he did not name is attempting to do the same outside Loop 1604 near UTSA’s Main Campus.
Failed efforts to land an NFL team for the newly constructed Alamodome in the 1990s was another disappointment in a career that otherwise had few setbacks.
Wolff said he and Tracy were at peace with the decision to make his current term as county judge his last one. Most elected officials learn from vote totals when their time in office is done. Wolff has enjoyed the rare opportunity to serve for many years and chose the timing of his departure from public service.
That decision, no doubt, was hastened by the demands he shared with Mayor Ron Nirenberg managing the pandemic for two years, particularly as local efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus were thwarted by Gov. Greg Abbott and other state officials who opposed mandatory mask mandates and failed to aggressively promote the importance of vaccinations.
Those political decisions pleasing to the Republican base cost many lives unnecessarily, according to public health officials.
Wolff’s strongest remarks during the luncheon program came in his criticism of the state’s top political leaders and the battles they have waged in successive legislative sessions against cities and counties and local authority. He makes a compelling case in support of his views in his latest book, The Mayor and the Judge: The Inside Story of the War Against COVID, that chronicles the local response to the long pandemic and the battles with Abbott and others.
Wolff signed copies of the book in the Tobin lobby following the luncheon. The line of people waiting patiently was long. There was a real sense of a major milestone being marked with Wolff’s looming retirement. I probably speak for many when I say I hope it’s a retirement from public office but not from public life.
