Last Wednesday, a team of blue-ribbon business and academic names presented their vision for Mayor Julián Castro’s Brainpower Initiative to a packed room in the Municipal Plaza Building on West Commerce. USAA CEO Joe Robles, retired major general, led the charge. He was backed up by Gillian Williams of the Rensselaerville Institute in the role of education expert, and Assistant City Manager Peter Zanoni, who explained how the City will pay for it.
The plan: Ask voters to approve an 1/8-cent increase in the local sales tax to pay for a pre-K program that could dramatically improve the academic prospects of 20,000 students over five years. The estimated take over the five-year period is $146.5 million, and if voters sign off on it, it will max out the City’s sales-tax power at the state-mandated cap of 8.25 percent.
When Robles and his crew had finished, District 6 Councilman Ray Lopez kicked off a round of praise and enthusiasm. Rey Saldaña, the District 4 Councilman with the Ivy League pedigree and a teaching position at Trinity University, piled on, suggesting that we could spend a little money now on early childhood education, or a lot later on prison – a legitimate and increasingly mainstream argument. But the glow was bound to fade as the Council district numbers inched up toward the North Side districts.
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