“It’s good to be back.”
Those were the first words Ron Nirenberg said to supporters on Tuesday night as he prepared to return to public office as Bexar County’s next judge.
The former San Antonio mayor scored a decisive victory over Republican Patrick Von Dohlen in the county judge race and celebrated with hundreds at an election night party at Backyard on Broadway. He and a jubilant crowd were caught up, not only in his victory, but in a broader blue wave sweeping Texas Democrats to power for the first time in decades.
Nirenberg had reportedly considered a bigger role in that effort and contemplated a run for governor. He instead decided to stay close to home, telling supporters his heart is still in the 210.
Now, Nirenberg is prioritizing public safety, mental health and infrastructure planning as he writes his next chapter. He’ll do that with a Bexar County government that could get fresh opportunities from progressive wins across the state.
Nirenberg has long been associated with city government. He stepped into San Antonio City Hall as a councilman for District 8 in 2013 and would leave as its mayor 12 years later.
In more than a decade, he fashioned a reputation as an effective communicator and coalition-builder capable of bringing residents together to pass a landmark workforce development program, charting a course through the COVID-19 pandemic and pushing for San Antonio’s first-ever $150 million affordable housing bond.
He embarked upon this latest political chapter by jumping into a primary with Democratic incumbent Peter Sakai in March, ousting the one-term judge by nearly 25 points and then finalizing the victory in heavily Democratic Bexar County with a 33-point win over Von Dohlen on Tuesday night, receiving nearly twice the number of votes as his Republican opponent.
“I’m excited about a new era here in Bexar County, where we will have partners up and down the government to work together to solve problems,” Nirenberg said Tuesday night. “That’s when real great things can happen for our community.”
During his campaign to lead the county, Nirenberg listed new priorities, like public safety and public health, while maintaining his focus on issues like housing, infrastructure and economic development.
Nirenberg will be one of the first to tell you that county government is very different from his past life at the City of San Antonio.
There are more people to work with, from the Bexar County Sheriff and District Attorney to the leaders of other suburban cities and counties, plus Texas officials and a Republican-led Legislature — where his outspoken progressive policies could contribute to any number of clashes.
Bexar County is, ultimately, an arm of the state government, beholden to officials in Austin. There are still decision-making abilities at the county, but it’s not the same as being a city with an independent charter.
It’s something county leaders in other progressive areas have noted.
“While home-rule cities have broad authority to govern local affairs, counties can generally exercise only the powers specifically granted by the Constitution and state law,” Travis County Judge Andy Brown said in an email. “That can make it challenging to respond to local needs, particularly when counties identify problems but lack the authority or flexibility to address them directly.”
Brown said that the Texas Legislature will determine what tools county officials have in their 2027 session. There could be more options than in years past after Democrat Gina Hinojosa won the gubernatorial election and Democrats made gains in the State House.
While the “whats” of his new job — what the powers of the top county executive are and which resources he has to work with — might be different, Nirenberg says the “how” will be the same.
“You have to build relationships. You have to build coalitions. You have to show the will and trust of the public to do that work,” he said in an extended interview Oct. 5. “There has to be accountability, and so all of that happens through the relationships and through demonstrating public support.”
Throughout his campaign, Nirenberg said he wants to lean on his experience bringing people together to find solutions. On Tuesday, he celebrated with two other victorious county commissioners at Backyard on Broadway — Tommy Calvert (Pct. 4) and Justin Rodriguez (Pct. 2). Both said they looked forward to working with Nirenberg on the Commissioners Court that runs Bexar County.
From city to county
He’s the first San Antonio mayor to take the reins of county government since Nelson Wolff, who became Bexar County Judge in 2001.
It’s fitting, then, that Wolff was one of the first people Nirenberg spoke to when deciding whether to run for county office.
“When Ron finished his term, he was deciding what to do and we met several times. I encouraged him to run for county judge,” Wolff said.
Wolff had endorsed Sakai to replace him in 2022, but switched his endorsement to Nirenberg this year. The pair worked together closely during the COVID-19 pandemic, collaborating with public health response efforts and giving nightly live television updates together.
Wolff said Nirenberg’s communication and leadership skills will help him engage with a new kind of challenge. “I thought it would be really good for the county to have a spokesman who was articulate, who could lead,” Wolff said.
In San Antonio, Nirenberg was part of a city government led by 10 elected City Council members and a strong city manager in a council-manager form of government.
As county judge, Nirenberg will serve on a smaller five-member Commissioner’s Court while also working alongside other elected officials: a county clerk, a sheriff, a district attorney and a litany of judges, among others.
County commissioners control the full Bexar County budget, Wolff said, but areas like law enforcement and the court systems are under the purview of other elected officials.
For Nirenberg, this is where coalition-building may come in handy. He wants to see backlogs of cases erased. He wants to reduce overcrowding in jails. He supports a diversion pilot in the short term and a permanent diversion center in the long term, so that people with mental or behavioral health issues have a place to go that’s not jail.
Handling criminal justice in the fourth-largest county in Texas requires intricate solutions coordinated between different offices and departments. Nirenberg says he wants to work with other county officials to make sure their offices are well-staffed, so they can deal with these issues, and work with community groups that can help solve problems.
“One of the things I want to do is activate a criminal justice coordinating committee that has all the people at the table that we’re regularly working with to make sure that once we solve the problem, we’re keeping it solved,” he said.
Nirenberg is stepping into county office at a time when the county’s budget could be increasingly limited. Bexar County Commissioners approved a budget this year that is $200 million lower than last year’s and dipped $68 million into surplus funds.
On Tuesday, Nirenberg said he wanted to build 5- and 10-year plans for Bexar County’s financial health and make government more efficient before thinking about tax increases.
“If we have challenges with delivering essential services, we need to be in community conversation before any revenue is adjusted. We need to make sure that the residents of this community know it’s not going to be on the backs of working families,” he told the San Antonio Report on Tuesday.
Bexar County brings in less revenue, plus it has fewer places to go to find more when the revenue starts to dry up. “There’s limited resources for the county, as opposed to the city,” Wolff said.
Bexar County’s budget is currently about $2.6 billion, while the city’s budget is just over $4.4 billion.
Some of Nirenberg’s priorities, like eliminating duplicated work between the city and county and modernizing county operations, could help save money, he said.
But he’ll likely have to contend with less resources than his predecessor to accomplish his agenda, unless a new state government opens up resources at the county level.
Bexar County is already financially committed to large-scale capital projects, including $311 million for a new downtown arena for the Spurs NBA team, $193 million for redeveloping the county-owned Frost Bank Center and necessary flood control improvements.
Nirenberg supports the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo’s efforts to expand their programming at the Frost Bank Center, he said, and wants more community input to implement residents’ visions, rather than one of his own.
State limits
Wolff has seen the differences between county and city government from almost every angle, as a state legislator, mayor and county judge. City council members are primarily policymakers for their community. Counties have less authority, he said.
“You have to concentrate on what you want, be a little more focused on what you want to get done,” Wolff said.
It’s a point Nirenberg is very aware of. Counties are a statutory arm of the state, he said in October. He’ll have to work within state rules to get things done.
One of Nirenberg’s signature issues at the city was launching and getting funding for VIA Metropolitan Transit’s advanced rapid bus lines, which will start service in 2028.
Now, he is looking at the next phase of the region’s transportation needs as growth sprawls out into unincorporated parts of Bexar County.
“What I would like to do is develop a land-use strategy that utilizes the tools that we have available … where we can ensure that as communities are developed, as they’re put into the ground, they have the proper street, sidewalk, sewer and other infrastructure, so that those things are in place before people actually start to occupy,” Nirenberg said.
Whether its traffic snarls, water and power needs or planning for wildfires, floods and other climate disasters, Nirenberg sees a need for more coordination in growth.
He wants a 10-year infrastructure plan and hazard risk assessments for new communities. But the Bexar County Judge’s power is limited when it comes to land use. Take data centers: Nirenberg said local officials need more control over where and how the facilities are built.
Current state regulations don’t give counties that authority. Cities can enforce land-use regulations, where they control what goes where through defined zoning laws. Counties often have to use incentive deals to lure construction to certain areas.
Exactly how much control Nirenberg has over planning and future land use could come down to decisions in Austin, where state lawmakers, influenced by Democrats’ gains this week, could hammer out new abilities for county governments.
“We work with them in partnership, and if they are doing their jobs and we’re doing our jobs, mountains can be moved with respect to access to all of those services. That’s what I’m excited about,” Nirenberg said.
Maintaining priorities
One of Nirenberg’s major policy creations as mayor was Ready to Work, a workforce development program that was approved by a vast majority of voters in 2020. Returns on the program have been mixed, but it’s picked up steam over the last year and Nirenberg has said building a talented workforce is the best first step in improving San Antonio’s economy and incomes.
“We are making, in this region, the biggest human capital investments in the country,” Nirenberg said. “At the same time, [we are] making these big community-supported investments in our downtown, in our airport, in our regional hubs on the East Side and elsewhere, and that’s a story that should be told from every rooftop in the country, if not the world.”
Whether through large public investments, like downtown sports stadiums and airport renovations, or attracting private manufacturers and employers, San Antonio’s leaders have tried to bolster the local economy through megaprojects.
Nirenberg has been party to this, voting for bus and airport projects as mayor, when negotiations for Project Marvel and a new downtown minor league baseball stadium also took place.
In his new role, with more state and federal support, that could even include collaborative transportation projects with Austin. It’s something that Nirenberg and his counterparts in Travis County are open to exploring.
While his role in those large projects and in Bexar County residents’ lives is changing, Nirenberg’s signature way of addressing issues is not.
“My approach has been to hear from the community, and then with the support and trust of the community, make the decision that’s right for all of us,” he said.
