The authority that's overseeing the build-out of Brooks City-Base expects to win certification as an EB-5 regional center within the next month or two. That means the Brooks Development Authority can start asking foreign investors to kick in $1 million each to a fund for a slew of capital projects in exchange for green cards.
The first of its kind locally, the center will cover the entire county, not just the former Air Force base on the Southeast Side.

The County has high hopes for the program, seeing it as a potential vehicle to help pay for the construction of a long sought-after children's hospital.

It took jurors less than 30 minutes last week to return a verdict reversing the Bexar Appraisal District's denial of a property tax exemption for a nonprofit that provides housing for low- and moderate-income tenants.

It was a major defeat for Chief Appraiser Michael Amezquita, who caused an uproar in 2010 when he revoked tax-exempt status for 42 housing developments. The recent trial was the first legal challenge taken up by a Bexar County jury.

SAWS would love to wriggle out of a contract that's as expensive as it is controversial – BexarMet's agreement with the Water Exploration Co. to supply water to Stone Oak. But if the City-owned utility can't break the deal, it at least wants to renegotiate it to lessen the financial sting. Without one or the other, a rate increase for BexarMet customers would have been hard to avoid. Nevertheless, SAWS officials on Monday said they'd managed it.

CPS Energy violated the Texas Public Information Act by deleting video showing the utility’s top lawyer practicing for a television interview, according to a lawyer specializing in freedom of information issues.

The City-owned utility’s communications department shot the video the day before I sat down for an on-camera interview with CPS General Counsel Carolyn Shellman to discuss expenditures for expensive meals and parties – bills footed by ratepayers.

As we prepared for the interview, I asked Shellman if she had rehearsed for her appearance, a standard public-relations practice ahead of a high-stakes interview. The attorney denied any special preparation as we sat down in the utility’s board room at CPS Energy headquarters on February 1. But CPS Energy emails – released in response to a recent open records request I filed – reveal Shellman and the utility’s communications department did rehearse her answers the day before her on-camera appearance. The emails show Communications Director Lisa Lewis sent meeting notices to Shellman and the utility’s videographer for what she called a “run through interview” and “interview prep” on January 31.

When I requested a copy of the video last week, I was informed it no longer existed. “We don’t have any material responsive to your request about Ms. Shellman’s interview preparation,” Lewis said in an email responding to the open records request. “We played back from the camera and did not save the file.”

Deleting the video violates the Texas Public Information Act says Joe Larsen, an attorney and director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, an open-government advocacy group. (Disclosure: I am on the FOIFT board).

“There is no doubt that the public’s business and the official position of the utility were discussed. That’s not a transitory record, but substantive information subject to the retention schedule.” said Larsen.

Yet Lewis said, “CPS Energy does not have a specific video retention policy.” However, CPS Energy says it did retain footage from an employee interview training session held last summer.

A spokesperson for San Antonio Water System says it has no policy on raw video, but follows the guidelines set by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Those require public records to be retained at least two years.

“Generally speaking, we consider raw footage to be of archival value, and we retain it indefinitely when practical," SAWS spokeswoman Anne Hayden said. "But that’s not to say we’ve never lost any to accidental erasure or media failure."

In the case of CPS Energy's video, it was not an accident.

Click this link to see the full raw interview of the WOAI interview with CPS Energy's General Counsel.

— Brian Collister, WOAI Investigative Reporter. Find him online at woai.com. Email tips to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .