District 1 Councilman Roberto Treviño fights for a fourth term

It’s an early Wednesday afternoon and I’m speaking with Roberto Treviño, one of San Antonio’s boldest progressives currently in elected office, about the final stretch of his District 1 council runoff against environmental activist Mario Bravo.

To start, I ask Treviño to list the core values that would sum up the essence of his six and a half years on the dais.

“They are compassion, equity, and simply being thoughtful about everyone,” he says via phone with a warm, raspy voice.

Treviño, 50, faced five challengers in last month’s election. Of the 12,569 in-district ballots counted, the incumbent earned 44.9 percent of the vote (5,645 votes) and Bravo registered 33.6 percent (4,225 votes), resulting in Saturday’s runoff.

As an outspoken housing advocate, Treviño has fought for initiatives like the Under 1 Roof program and the City’s emergency housing assistance program. Addressing the issue of homelessness has been a top priority throughout his tenure, however, his approach to solving the matter has drawn sharp criticism from some D1 residents.

Among his accomplishments has been his efforts to protect small businesses through hospitality relief programs, which has prevented many pandemic-related closures.

“As a councilman, you want to be that bridge to find a way to connect your community with resources to get them access [to assistance],” he says.

Regardless of the electoral outcome, Treviño believes he’s made a difference in the way local government operates.

“City Hall will never be the same again,” he says. “Now it is an ultra-accessible City Hall. [That’s] because of me.”

Ahead of the election, the citizen-architect paved his own way as the only council member to support Proposition B, the ballot measure to repeal the police union’s collective bargaining power, and also endorsed progressive Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, the opponent of his District 2 colleague, Jada Andrews-Sullivan, because the candidate’s views on equity and housing were in step with his own.

“I think Jalen [and I have] worked on similar issues,” he says. “We provide a voice to people who feel like they are voiceless.”

Perhaps the most-circulated upbraiding of Treviño’s work was his handling of the $450 million Alamo Plaza redevelopment project.

On this point, he seems happy to set the record straight.

“The [Alamo Plaza] project, as agreed upon by [all participating committees], was blocked politically by the Texas Historical Commission, effectively cancelling out a great project,” he says. “The disagreement that I had was that City management came up with a solution where the City would pay for improvements on State-controlled property. The fight wasn’t over the Cenotaph. I realize the Cenotaph can’t move.”

The City, he explains, will be spending more money in the end.

“It’s a stand [I took] based on every [principle] we’ve talked about: Our need for more housing, our need to help the homeless, our need to help small business, and our need to improve infrastructure. All those things cost money, so why would we spend our money on State-controlled property? Answer me that.”

When he can take a break from the campaign, Treviño enjoys spending time with his family and Captain, his German shepherd, who pops up on my Instagram feed on occasion.

“It’s a reminder that there’s people that love [and] care about you,” he says.

But now, he’s razor-focused on this high-stakes runoff.

“A fourth term is very important to me because of all these programs that I’ve started that I want to see through,” he says.

I tell him that the road to get there seems like a lot of hard work.

“It is,” he says heartily. “But it’s worth it.”