The City of San Antonio’s executive staff has again recommended against establishing an Office of Crime and Recidivism, something Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) has been requesting for nearly two years.
“To me, it feels like a middle finger,” McKee-Rodriguez said during council’s Public Safety Committee meeting Tuesday, as though city staff is saying “we don’t care to look into what your [request] will take, so here are all the reasons why we shouldn’t do it.”
McKee-Rodriguez said it doesn’t matter what it’s called or how it’s structured as long as there is a position within the City of San Antonio that is focused on reducing both violent crime and property crime with strategies that don’t rely on police.
As long as that person is “coordinating with every single city department and helping them operate from a lens of crime prevention, I will be happy,” he told reporters after the meeting. “As of yet, I have not been convinced that that’s going to be the case.”
Deputy City Manager María Villagómez and the councilman’s colleagues on the committee seem to agree with his premise, but disagreed that it would require additional staff positions or funding for the city to do that work.
“We have to reduce violent crime, we have to get community engagement,” Villagómez said. “We have [to have] programs upstream” that reduce crime by increasing access to employment, education and recreation.
“Those are the things that we are focusing on, but first and foremost is keeping the community safe,” she said.
Villagómez gave the committee an overview of the various ways the city is already addressing the priorities outlined in McKee-Rodriguez’s original request for the Office of Crime and Recidivism Prevention through SAPD’s Violent Crime Reduction Plan — as well as the broader Violence Prevention Strategic Plan and a study of how city programs impact public safety, both of which will be finalized later this year.
But those initiatives don’t directly address the increase in property crime and recidivism, McKee-Rodriguez noted.
While he successfully advocated for two positions related to crime prevention in the 2023 and 2024 city budgets, a public safety outcomes coordinator and grants coordinator, their efforts — and accountability — should be centralized, he said. “If something is everyone’s job, it’s no one’s job,” he said, and the city’s investment should be ongoing, not “one-time” studies and strategic plans.
He envisions additional positions that would constantly study and respond to trends in crime throughout the city and operate under one person who would oversee crime reduction efforts and coordinate with other departments.
Currently, that’s Villagómez’s job.
“We strongly believe that those initiatives … are not one-time in nature,” Villagómez said. “Those are things that are … paving the road for us to be more strategic and more deliberate about addressing crime in our community.”
Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) agreed that there are gaps between McKee-Rodriguez’s vision for the office and what the city provides. But rather than create a separate office, the city can reshuffle positions and address those gaps, he said.
“Let’s look at exactly what you want to accomplish here and let’s take a look at the team we’ve already got in place,” Whyte said. “I don’t want to see more positions hired.”
The city’s charter outlines that council members develop policy and the city manager is charged with deciding how to execute policy, said Liz Provencio, first assistant city attorney. “The actual direction and people that perform it is within the purview of the city manager.”
The committee agreed to continue the conversation at its meeting next month, when McKee-Rodriguez expects a more thorough breakdown of how other cities have approached crime and recidivism prevention.
The City of Dallas, for instance, established the Office of Integrated Public Safety Solutions in 2020. The office “works proactively to address systemic factors that contribute to criminal activity by providing non-law enforcement solutions that improve the quality of life in the community and reduce the demand for police service,” according to its website.
“It’s hard not to feel disrespected,” McKee-Rodriguez said during the meeting. “When a council member files a CCR, regardless of whether or not I agree with it, it is not staff’s role to disregard it and wait it out until the council member is no longer in office, or to refuse to respond directly to its purpose.”
Comparisons to other cities were not included in the presentation because city staff focused on what’s already being done by the city toward the CCR’s goals, Villagómez said. “The structure in this particular case was not critical.”
City staff is not entirely responsible for when CCRs are discussed. The council’s Governance Committee, chaired by the mayor, places CCRs on the agenda and forwards them on to other committees to consider. The chairs of those committees then choose which topics to address at each meeting in coordination with city staff to ensure they are prepared to present relevant information.
“It’s my responsibility to put it on [the] public safety agenda and I didn’t get to it fast enough,” said Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6), who chairs the Public Safety Committee. “So I’m going to hold some responsibility for that.”
In August, Whyte and Mayor Ron Nirenberg announced plans to revamp the CCR system.
That work is still underway, Whyte said. “We’re moving toward getting that fixed because two years is too long. All these things need to be heard … and get votes and [either] moved along or killed.”
