SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg on Tuesday spent a significant portion of his State of the City address defending the city’s workforce development program, Ready to Work!
The annual address, delivered by the mayor in front of a packed Grand Ballroom at the Marriott Rivercenter, included a testimonial video of graduates of the $200 million program, which opened enrollment two years ago next month.
“It doesn’t go away on its own. Education, workforce development are pathways out of poverty,” Nirenberg told the media after his nearly 30-minute speech concluded. “This is a work in progress and we’re not counting widgets, we’re changing people’s lives.”
The remarks came days after the San Antonio Express-News reported the program, which began enrolling residents in May 2022, has fallen short in some of its key metrics.
The program had lofty ambitions of providing free job training through certification and degree programs for tens of thousands of San Antonians and placing them in “high-quality” jobs in high-demand fields.
However, expectations for the program have been adjusted over time. And as of mid-December, roughly a year-and-a-half into the Ready To Work! program, just 398 people of the 808 who have completed their training had been placed into “quality jobs,” according to a city tracking dashboard.
The number has risen to 628 people out of more than 1,200 graduates, according to current figures provided by the city.
District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez, who has been an outspoken critic of the program, told KSAT after the mayor’s speech on Tuesday that it is too important to fail.
“There’s a lot of people in the community who are very worried that we’re not hitting a lot of the numbers that we thought we’d be hitting at this point,” said Pealez, who said his formal announcement Tuesday that he will be running for mayor in the 2025 election was purely coincidental and not timed to be released just hours before Nirenberg’s speech.
Nirenberg, who is term-limited, cannot be on the ballot for mayor next year.
Pelaez said the city as recently as last week took the important step of agreeing to provide funds directly to businesses for “in-house” training.
Latest on potential Spurs move downtown
Nirenberg continued to be coy on whether the city and the San Antonio Spurs organization are in talks to move the NBA franchise downtown.
Buzz around the possibility gained steam last week after the University of Texas at San Antonio announced plans to tear down the Institute of Texan Cultures and move the museum elsewhere.
The nearly 14-acre site, located across the highway from the Alamodome on the Hemisfair campus, has been rumored as a potential site for a downtown arena.
In February, the University of Texas System Board of Regents conditionally approved an exclusive option for the City of San Antonio to buy or lease the land for a potential revitalization project.
“We want to be engaged in the future of that site, which is an extremely important area of downtown that is being developed,” Nirenberg said Tuesday.
Asked why a potential new arena for the Spurs would be better suited to be built downtown as opposed to east Bexar County, where the team currently plays its home games, Nirenberg told KSAT, “Major event venues are most suitable in the places where we have the most people able to access them.”
The Spurs current lease at the Frost Bank Center expires in 2032.
While the city and the NBA organization have not publicly commented on possible talks to move the franchise downtown, records obtained by KSAT last year revealed the two sides had met at least twice.
The emails did not indicate what was discussed in either meeting.
You can read a transcript of Nirenberg’s address below: