SUBJECT:
THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
San Antonio History
INTERVIEW WITH: William Thornton
DATE: 5 July 1996
PLACE: Mr. Holmesly's Office
INTERVIEWER: Sterlin Holmesly
H: Interview with San Antonio Mayor, Bill Thronton, July 5,
1996, in my office. This is Sterlin Holmesly.
T: I'm Bill Thornton. I'm currently the Mayor of San
Antonio, but my first time to come to San Antonio was 1963,
when I came to Trinity University to go to college. I was
born in Abilene. I lived there through high school. Attended
Trinity University for two academic years; went to Dental
School in Dallas; did my oral surgery training in Dallas, and
then returned in 1972. I involved myself in civic activities,
primarily through my start with Albert Bustamante and the
Bexar county Hospital District, where I served for 12 years,
the last 10 as chairman.
H: And you came to town. You are related to James Bauerle?
T: That's true. In 1972, the reason I came back to practice
was to practice oral and maxillofacial surgery with James
Bauerle, who at that time was President of the Texas Dental
Association and was just becoming a Regent of the University
of Texas System. And we practiced together for several years
and then separated our practices around 1977.
H: As I recall, you also ... we'll talk about the Hospital
THORNTON 2
H: District in a bit ... but you were also involved with San
Antonio Symphony, as something of a trouble-maker, as I
recall. I may be miscalling that, but you certainly got the
people's attention there for a few years. And you have been
on the City Council; you served 2 terms and then were elected
mayor in 1995.
T: Correct.
H: Correct. All right. Let's talk. You are at the top of
the city political hierarchy in your office.
T: Correct.
H: How does that work? How do you get things done? You're
one of eleven members; you have very little power, real power.
T: [laughter) Well, you're right. The mayor in this city
has one vote. We have 10 council members, so mine plus
theirs, as I'm one of eleven. I have, by charter, no ability
to set an agenda, literally, or for council meetings to
determine what items will be discussed and voted on. But just
like each of the council members, have to get the concurrence
of at least 5 others to join with me, to do that. The power
that is held in the mayor's office is, primarily, through
those sometimes skills, but more often that position that that
person holds. As I remind myself and sometimes my colleagues,
whereas each of the council members is elected by one-tenth of
the city, the mayor is elected by the entire city. And so,
because of that, the office is given more importance. But in
getting votes and making things happen, I have absolutely no
THORNTON 3
T: power over any of the council members, to make things
move along.
H: Well, how is it, now you're serving under what some
regard as draconian term limits - two two-year terms and out,
either as member of councilor as mayor, which we're beginning
to see - we will soon have an almost perpetually green city
council. By the time they learn how things work, they're on
the way out; they are lame ducks. It seems to me that the
power of city staff is increased immensely. Is that an
accurate reading, as far as the agenda and how things really
come down?
T: I think it is. And at this time, with [city manager]
Alex Briseno, that is not a terrible problem for me, but
certainly the power is shifting over toward staff - simply
because they're the ones who have the planning department that
they can assign to do research for them. They are the ones
who can assign each of the department heads to simply spend
their financial and human resources addressing this problem.
We on the council, and I as mayor, don't have that ability.
And with the shorter terms for elected officials, we don't
have time to build up a reservoir of, oh, of involvement in
issues and a memory of what's gone on.
H: And leverage.
T: Exactly. And that was kind of the word I was trying to
think about on reservoir. You know, with time, you gain
purchase points - you know, where you can grab something and
THORNTON 4
T: make it move, and you remember when you last were helpful
to someone. But it's very difficult now, because the terms
are very short.
H: Well, your time on city council has been all under the
single-member district plan, which went in in the late 70's.
You've served as a council member for District 8, right?
T: Correct.
H: And, as mayor, do you find it hard, as a single-member
district council person, to think of the whole city? Or is
just all the phone calls from your constituents in your
neighborhoods ... can you ever step back and say, "What does San
Antonio need?"
T: I think that's an accurate description of what it's like
to be a councilman, and it also gives meaning to why you need
a mayor who has that city-wide view.
different agenda as mayor than I
And I certainly have a
did as a councilman.
Councilmen are basically having to deal with the delivery of
basic city services - streets, maintenance, police, fire,
garbage, those things that are direct response of citizens
wanting the services delivered as they think they ought to.
The mayor has the ability to step away from that and each of
the single-member districts, and try to see where we are as an
entire community. What are the overall problems that are
above basic services and, more importantly, where do we need
to be going in the future? And that's, I think, the only
person in city government, other than possibly the city
THORNTON 5
T: manager, the mayor is the only one who has that
opportunity.
H: But then you have to convince the other members of the
importance of these goals?
T: That's truej that's true. And for me in this first year,
it wasn't an agenda that I chose, but rather was the ... just
the fate that was given us - and that was the closure of
Kelly.
H: Your agenda has been Kelly and water, basically, since
you took office?
T: Correct.
H: Kelly being foremost.
T: And Kelly is pretty well on-track with the good group of
citizens working that forward. And I'm trying, as best I can,
to limit it to specific areas - education and water - with
guiding both of those towards job creation.
H: Now in education, city, officially, has nothing to do
with education. You've got these 15 independent school
districts. Do they listen to the mayor?
T: They do. One of the things that I've been pleasantly
surprised to find is the community is very kind to whoever's
the mayor. And you are given an opportunity to speak. You
can involve yourself in things, if you choose to do so. Henry
Cisneros involved himself with the Education Partnership.
Mayor Lila Cockrell was also involved in that, and keeping
children in school was the driving force behind that. But
THORNTON 6
T: other than that, there's not been that much involvement
of the mayor with these other districts, because each of those
districts have their own elected board of trustees. And rather
than to insert ... the mayor to insert himself or herself into
that, most of the time they've hesitated to do it.
H: Would it be better, or more logical, if San Antonio had
fewer school district? say three or four?
T: I think it'd be much better. The problem we have is in
some of the smaller, poorer districts - the biggest game going
is the school district, in terms of job creation, of structure
of any type in that part of the city. And so, it becomes a
very powerful influence over that neighborhood ... those
neighborhoods in that part of our community. And the school
boards then start acting in a very political way - not so much
directed towards the students and their education, but rather
towards the school district and the number of jobs that can be
given out from it.
H: Yeah, directly involved in day-to-day operations and
personnel and ...
T: Well, one of things you're starting, see, is ... and we
mention single-member districts in San Antonio at City Hall,
but if you do that within a school district and you are the
representative for that district that has this high school in
that district and this middle school and these elementary
schools. Then they - in some trustees' minds - that becomes
their high school. And they have, in the past - I think
THORNTON 7
T: incorrectly so - directed involved themselves in the
hiring and deciding who would be the principal, the assistant
principals, the teachers. And you've taken the administration
of the schools away from school superintendents into elected
officials. And I think that's wrong.
H: Let's change topics. Let's go back to the Hospital
District. What year were you first elected to Bexar County
Hospital District Board?
T: Well, I was appointed in 1979 by Albert Bustamante.
H: Who was County Judge.
T: Correct. And I went on and immediately was appointed,
then, to chair the Budget and Finance committee, and chaired
that for two years. And then, in 1981, was elected chairman
of that board and served as chairman from 1981 to 1991.
H: And in that time, as I recall from personal experience,
there was a great change in how the board operates and how the
district operates went from an annual supplicant to
Commissioners' Court to a self-sustaining operation, modern
state-of-the-art facilities. How did that come about?
T: The reason I asked Albert to put me on the board - and he
and I were serving together what was called the Health systems
Agency, back in the Carter administration years when federal
dollars were flowing into health care and there was a desire
to set up clinics... And I ... at that time the Hospital
District had just moved the OB services from downtown out to
the Medical School , or to the northwest part of our city. And
THORNTON 8
T: a lot of the citizens who were using that service felt
like they were being abandoned and that the center part of our
city was being left behind for this new campus, which to them
seemed very, very far north. And, in fact, there was a suit
by citizens against the Hospital District. And so, it was in
the late 70's - a very contentious time between the community
and the Hospital District, the very people the hospital was
there to serve, and the Medical School. And I'd mentioned to
Albert, I said, "Albert, I think I can do a better job of
that. I think we can open that board up." I said, "If you
appoint me on there, we'll blast that thing open and have
where lights come in through the windows and the doors open
and people can see what we're doing." And he did appoint me,
and in 1979 we began serving there. I think one of the other
interesting things was from ... through the 80's, if you were to
try to find a part of our economy, nationally, where costs
were escalating, were spiraling upward, health care was often
given as an example. It was going up, up, up. And here we
were in San Antonio, required to provide that health care
which was costing more off of a tax base which was not
wealthy, and yet do that without raising taxes.
H: Let me i nterject here that the Hospital District, in
effect, was the county charity ward for people who could not
afford medical care.
T: That's correct. We had gotten a Medical School in 1968,
or the promise of a Medical School then, and a Dental School
THORNTON
T: followed,
what was then
and then a Nursing School.
called a Health Science
9
And we soon had
Center. And the
Hospital District was now becoming more and more of a teaching
hospital, rather than simply a safety net to capture people
who had no health insurance, or didn't have the funds to go to
the other hospitals here in town. And so, it was in that
environment that we took over, and there were others on the
board who were strong leaders that contributed greatly.
H: Some of those names?
T; Peveto.
H: John Peveto.
T: Marvin smith.
H: Dr. Marvin smith.
T: Yeah. And who was John smith? If you knew the history
of San Antonio, you know there becomes a line from one to the
other, but there were a lot of good people on the board at
that time. The amazing thing we did, though, Sterlin, is from
1979 till the time I left in 1991, we never borrowed money -
large amounts of money - and we built 55 million dollars worth
of capital improvements, and we did it out of cash flow. What
we did was, we made a conscious decision to not only care for
non-funded patients who were simply a cost and expense, an
obligation to meet, but also to care for funded patients who
would br ing revenues into the facility. And that was not
received kindly by the Medical Society, which about every 3
years would remind us that the hospital was there simply to
THORNTON 10
T: care for the poor and to teach. And we would then add to
that, "We're also here to, as much as possible, be self­sustaining.
" The changes in health care now are making it
where what we began then, we have positioned our Hospital
District to where it is able to compete. And as we're going
toward managed-care, they are one of the forces that is
accepted in the community as an option for many people who
have choices to go anywhere they would like.
H: I remember one of your difficulties, in addition to the
local Medical society, was convincing the faculty members to
bring their own patients into the County Hospital.
T: No doubt about it. We can't have a ...
H: The paying patients.
T: We can't have a funded patient if there's not a doctor
who is going to also treat them. And if you can't get the
faculty - the physicians who are on the faculty - to come out
of their research labs, to get out of their classrooms, and to
begin seeing patients in a clinic setting and in the hospital,
then we're not going to generate revenues and neither are
they. Several things brought them into seeing the value of
that. One was that they started - they being the Health
Science Centers across the state - seeing they were also
getting fewer dollars from the state, and that started, then,
affecting their salaries. And they have a mechanism - what's
called the 'MSRDP' - it's a fund that their patient revenues,
when they generate, go into that fund and then allows them to
THORNTON 11
T: supplement their salaries. So, suddenly it was not only
to the Hospital District's benefit to have funded patients,
but the faculty started saying, "Well, if our salaries are
going to go up, we're going to have to generate those funds,
too." Or, again, a move off of complete dependence on the tax
rolls, but a move more towards self-sufficiency. And they did
not come along quickly, and I'm not sure that we were
persuasive. I think, more importantly, when it started
affecting their salaries, that was the reason for them to
start ...
H: It got their attention.
T: It's amazing how they saw the light and they, too, then
wanted to partner with the Hospital District in producing
revenues.
H: You mention cash-flow. From personal experience, the
county Hospital is the slowest at billing and collecting of
any medical institution I have ever been around, which makes
me wonder how steady the cash-flow is. Like, I had a problem
in August, and I got my final bill on it in May.
T: Yeah, it's horrible. We ... one of the things we had to do
was have a mind-shift, an attitude shift, of people who ... and
let them experience - and let me exaggerate to make a point -
who are simply on a government job. They're going to get
paid, regardless of what the hospital does, because the
revenues are coming from taxes. To shift that over more
toward, as I am in my private practice - if I do the work, I
THORNTON 12
T: don't get paid until the patient pays me. And you can't
do that with employees in an institution. But, yet, you can
move their attitude over to where they start realizing that if
you do the service, you need to capture the fee, to capture
the revenue.
H: I think some of them are still a little bit behind the
curve on that.
T: Always will be, and that's probably a continuing bettIe
I'll have to keep doing.
H: Yeah.
T: We have to do that in my practice, too. [laughter]
H: Right. Before we started this, you mentioned power -
vacuum of power - in San Antonio now. Tell us what you were
referring to and define the situation.
T: Let me make reference to when I ran in '91 for City
council, District 8. District 8 is the wealthiest part of our
community. It's a part of our city where there's high voter
turnout. It's the part of our city, when I ran in '91, that
was ... and we'd not redistricted or drawn the lines again since
1980. I had literally 200,000 citizens. It was a very large
district. And it was the most organized district, in terms of
neighborhood organizations - both voluntary and neighborhood
organizations where it was mandatory participation . So, when
I began to run, one of the first changes was ... I did from ...
I think in the past, I was not interested at all in who the
precinct chairmen were throughout the district of the,
THORNTON 13
T: historically, that voting structure. But I was far more
interested in who the leaders in each of the neighborhood
groups were. Because that, quite frankly, was where the
vibrancy was. That's where people were meeting; where they
were talking about issues on a weekly, bi-weekly basis. And
so, we were starting to see, I think, in the city the rise of
neighborhoods as a political entity that, quite frankly, in my
opinion, needed to be dealt with.
H: Do you credit that to the rise of the Communities
Organized for Public Service - the first neighborhood group?
T: No, it's separate. They were very much alike in that if
you asked the, "What do you want?" - and both of these areas
would say, "We want better infra-structure, better streets,
better education for our children, and safer neighborhoods . "
It's amazing how they say the same thing. But, yet, there was
a gulf between District 8 and District 5, where there was
absolutely no communication. And, in fact, the perception in
District 8 of what COPS was doing, was not something that
those people wanted to follow. But the truth is, they all
organized for exactly the same reasons. And some of what we
were seeing in [District] 8 was because there were large
developments, some of which - like Elm Creek - if you bought
a home there, you were required to contribute monthly and be
a member of the Elm Creek Homeowners Association. But there
were also a lot, as an example, of Ray Ellison sub-divisions
that would have, say 500 homes, a central area that had a
THORNTON 14
T: swimming pool and a community area and some un-sold lots
and some common area. Well, there was no requirement to
participate, but because of the swimming pool, because of the
common areas, and because of dealing with one developer­builder,
they came together voluntarily. In District 8, and
I mentioned how that was the factor then. Another thing, as
I looked to run, that I think was different from the past, I
saw the voting numbers, the just raw power of where the votes
were to be in those neighborhood groups, more so that what
could be driven or influenced by, in the past, simply corning
in with a large amount of money and through direct mail, phone
bands, or whatever money would buy in a campaign, just bulling
your way into a victory. It was more important to me then to
have the neighborhoods with me, for their votes, than it was
to have the business community with me for their money. Now,
the balance was to try to gain the confidence of both groups.
Once I got into office, that proved to be true. And I had
been a part of the business establishment, because in 1989 I
chaired the Greater Chamber. But several changes were
starting to take place. Also in '89 we had a campaign to
build the Alamodome. And the battle there was won by the
business community, but it was a close battle. And just
citizens those folks who represent the homeowners,
taxpayers, not the business or the establishment part of our
community - became oragnized and became a political influence
from that point on. I'm convinced of that . The election in
THORNTON 15
T: ' 91, when I went in as councilman, also had a very
spirited campaign of whether we should continue building
Applewhite or not. And at that point, you had the business
community, the establishment, the elected officials, all of
these people that normally would have won elections in the
past, saying, "We want this to happen." And, yet, through
petitions and through simple hard work and a lot of
creativi ty, the citizens-based groups who were, quite frankly,
on the outside of the establishment, won the election in '91.
And Applewhite was turned down as a lake ... We saw a similar
election in August of '94, and it was on a second attempt to
have a water plan for San Antonio.
on one side you had for the
And it was the same lineup
water plan, the business
communi ty , the newspaper, the establishment, most of the
money, all of the things that you would call the "power
structure of the city". And, again, against it you had the
people without money but with a great deal of passion and a
lot of creativity on how they sold their message, and they
beat the establishment again. And they not only beat them
again, they beat them by a greater margin.
H: Well, let me interject . I remember the first meeting
that I had with then-Mayor Nelson Wolff and others on the
second Applewhite election. And I said, "Nelson, what's the
problem?" He said, "They don't trust us." Is that what it
boils down to, in your view? Both Applewhites. And also,
even going further back, fluoride was turned down.
THORNTON 16
T: The two water issues were clearly not debated on the
engineering of whether you can build a lake or do a water plan
on the water issue itself, but were ... the two elections were
driven by political concerns. And I, for completeness sake,
want to add, just legal concerns. But the biggest problem we
had was a political issue, and it was, as you said, distrust.
Now, what I .. . how I would look at all of that and place it on
the table is, the old days of the banks, the law firms, the
accounting firms, and the Chamber, and the largest
corporations coming together and deciding what we're going to
do and then muscling it along with money, are gone!
H: And the Alamodome was the last one.
T: It was the last one. Now, look what else has happened.
One of the other things that was happening when the Alamodome
election in the late '80s was going on, look at the number of
banks that we had in this city and that transformation in
banks and in banking. Look at the law firms that we had in
the early '80s and then that transformation that took place
through the difficulties of the '80s. Look at the accounting
firms - the CPA firms. They, too, went from the Big 8 down to
where there are even fewer. There was a total fracturing of
the power structure in the matrix of what held this community
together - many communi ties in terms of legal, money,
business, and political power. And all of those things came
together where, at the end of it or at the beginning of the
'90S, it was like a war where there was no one standing . As
THORNTON 17
H: you looked around the horizon to see who was standing to
lead us, there was no one.
H: And, in some cases, they were killing the wounded.
T: Oh! Well, first you would kick them and take their
possessions and then kill them! But it was a difficult time
for a lot of people, because I don't think they understood,
those who had been in power before; they simply weren't in
power anymore.
And that's why, when I ran for election in '91, my
interest was not those previous power-brokers. I'm out there
at neighborhood meetings, sitting in lawn chairs, fighting red
ants. That's were the power was. Who had the ability to
bring those groups together? And as we all know in politics,
the one who wins the election is the one who gets the most
votes. And then at the end of that election, I can say, "I
got the most votes". But I think it has been a tremendous
change in how this city is run. It would be very difficult -
you and I started talking about this session here today, about
HemisFair '68. It would be far more difficult, in my opinion,
to do what was done in '68. Look what was done in '68:
HemisFair, UTSA, Riverwalk, Hospital District, Medical School.
And those were all decisions made by the "then-establishment"
that it would be far more difficult to do today.
H: Right. But one difference on HemisFair: I think for the
first time, the establishment reached out to as much of the
community as it could and involved as many people as it could
THORNTON
H: in the creation of HemisFair.
18
That was a watershed
thing. But would it be fair, then, to say that in your
political campaigns you have not depended upon what some call
the "extinct volcanoes"?
T: The "spent volcanoes"
which I thought was great,
is what Henry Catto told me, and
yeah. You know they're still
there, they're clearly enormous and ... but yet, they don't spew
forth with the power that they' ve had in the past, and
whenever they rumble, everyone stops and looks to see what
they're saying. I think those days are gone. I think the
mayors and the elected leaders of this community, single­member
districts, will ceretainly be grassroots campaigns.
But I think the mayors are going to have to be closer tied to
people.
H: Well, then, how do you get a consensus on anything? The
distrust is still lingering. I don't think that's gone away
from Applewhite. How do you get enough together to get
something done?
T: We have to gain trust. And there are several ways that
you can do that. One was, for me when I became mayor, one of
the first visible and not only, I think, real but symbolic
gestures, was the appointment of the chairman of the Water
Board. For decades the chairman of the Water Board had been
a white, male developer who was primarily building homes on
the northside. And the homes they were building were always
just exceeding our northern-most city limits, which required
THORNTON 19
T: for the Water Board the extension of water mains and
sewer service. And it required; as you build new schools in
undeveloped areas or new areas with undeveloped areas, you had
to build new schools. So it became important that you had
involvement with the school boards.
END OF TAPE I, Side 1
TAPE I, Side 2
T: So, what I wanted to do was to find an appoinment to that
position that would be, one, someone who was not a developer,
so that the interest of extending mains and not having hookup
fees when you hooked up new homes, making that as little as
possible, so that it worked to benefit the developers. But I
wanted someone who was not a developer, who would represent
the citizens more, someone who was more centrally located in
our city - if not physically, mentally at least. Was not
always pushing that northern boundary, as horne-building and
development was doing. And, thirdly, it was . . . it would have
been nice to me if that person was Hispanic. And so, in the
first month the name that finally carne to me and one that I
selected, was Juan Patlan. He was someone who had experience
in major developments. He was a mature man who had been a
part of our city for many years. He was not a developer and
he is Hispanic. well, that was a time for people to say,
"Well, hey, maybe this person, or Bill, maybe I am not someone
who's going to do things as they've been done in the past;
maybe I was showing an independence from those development
THORNTON
T: interests.
20
And, in fact, that decision was challenged
immediately, and it was an interesting thing. And you ask how
you make these changes? It was one where I against a council
that was against me by numbers, was, on their part, the second
floor of city hall, scurrying around putting together groups
to out-vote me. And so, in my first month, it became a very
clear time of decision of, "Am I going to let this council run
by committee, or was I going to be a mayor alone?" And I
chose to dig in and fight, and won, and got Juan Patlan. The
question you asked was, "How do you gain confidence?" Well,
one, I showed a break from the past. Now, has that been easy
for me on other fronts? No. Because it starts immediately
rumblings and IDumblings from those who for decades have been
able to call the mayor's office on the phone and move things
around. And I had sent a very clear signal that I was going
to be independent and try to be more representative of what
citizens - just people - wanted. And that's, in some ways,
caused hardship for me over this last year.
H: And probably will.
T: It will. but I'll tell you what - I cannot tell you how
free I became. There was a time when we were talking about
hiring a lobbyist for the city. And in that one evening I had
five phone calls, from 7:30 until 11:30, five separate phone
calls from two peoople who over the past decades had
repeatedly told the mayor what to do and who to hire. And
once I realized I didn't have to take those phone calls
THORNTON 21
T: anymore, I didn't have to have someone else tell me what
I thought was best for the city, was one of the most
liberating moments I've had. And from that point, quite
frankly, there may be skirmishes and difficulties and moments
of friction, but I feel clean and comfortable with the way I'm
able to make decisions.
H: Great. Let's talk about campaigns. What did it cost you
to be elected mayor last year?
T: Around eight hundred thousand.
H: For a position that pays fifty dollars a week.
T: [laughter] Fifty dollars.
H: Not much return on money.
T: No, it's not.
H: Okay.
your money,
dollars.
You didn't depend on the business community for
but you still came up with almost a million
T: Well, I did depend on the business community for the
money. The person I was running against was the ... Kay Turner,
who had won the 1994 water election, had won the 1991
Applewhite election, she and others, and had won the fight
against fluoride. And because of that time period, she had a
much higher name ID that I did. What's interesting was:
January of '95, just four months before the election, I did a
poll, by Tarrance, a good solid poll, a high number of people
surveyed, and found that my name identification, just that
they even knew me - this is after being on the Hospital
THORNTON 22
T: District the 12 years, chairman of the Chamber in '89,
and a councilman for three and a half years - at that point,
my name 10 was forty-one percent. It was lower than Kay
Turner's because she had been in the previous campaign. So,
we reali zed that for me to win, the first thing had to be for
people to learn who I was. And in a mayor's race in a city
this size, you've got to have money to buy television, to
direct-mail, and on the northside to get out the vote, you
have to do phone banks.
say I barely beat Kay
So, we had to raise money. People
Turner, but the key word in that
sentence is, " I beat her!"
H: Right.
T: She didn't get beat in '94; she didn't get beat in '91,
I'm the first; she didn't get beat on the fluoride; I'm the
first one to ever beat her!
H: Right. Well, I assume the fear of Kay Turner helped you
raise money from the business community. I mean, the idea of
Kay Turner being mayor must have caused a lot of sleepless
nights around town.
T: Oh, I know. A lot of folks are concerned about Bill
Thornton being mayor, but [laughter] I get ... you know,
politics is not who you necessarily want to fill that office.
Politics is deciding between those candidates that are before
you. And in that case, there were a lot of people that voted
for her that were against me, but there were also people who
voted for me that were against her.
THORNTON 23
H: Let's go to the job of mayor or just to public service.
I have observed and known all sorts of elected officials over
the years. And one thing I have never quite grasped is why
someone like you - successful medical practice, nice family -
deliberately seeks and achieves public office which (a) as
we've mentioned, pays almost nothing; (b) gets you a lot of
lumps, earns you some enemies as well as friends. You must
put in 60 or 70 hours a week as mayor, day and night. Why?
T: You're right. The disincentives are there. It's a
financial cost, it is a physical cost, it is an emotional
cost, it is a personal cost in terms of your family, and it's
a personal cost in terms of your friends. And in almost every
one of those areas, it's a negative, and a large negative.
But there is not a single position in this community, other
than the mayor's, where you have as much influence on a daily
basis, in our efforts to improve our community, our people's
lives. state legislators don't have that - state senators,
the county commissioners, the county judge. If you're mayor
of this city, more than anyone else you have the ability
to ... the best chance to do good for this community. And I
will tell you, for me, and that ... it's, with the term
limitations, I'm in and I'm out! And a mayor of a city this
size, I'm not certain leads anywhere. It didn't necessarily
for Lila Cockrell, didn't for Nelson Wolff. Henry Cisneros
was exceptional and was appointed to national office. But I
don't see it leading anywhere for me. It's a meat-grinderr!
THORNTON 24
T: So with all of those understandings, you start taking on,
literally, an almost paternalistic view of the city. And you
start becoming protective; you start, literally, caring. You
say it often enough, you know, "I care for those families that
work at Kelly; I care about those kids in school; I care about
those jobs". And if you've got any sort of emotion at all,
you really start feeling that responsibility. And that is
tremendously satisfying when you find you've made a
difference, to do some good for this community.
H: Is this opportunity to do good part of your Baptist
upbringing?
T: Oh, yeah. No doubt about it. And I answer quickly now
what years ago I wouldn't even have known what to answer. And
also, it's easier for me to answer at age 51, because my view
of life is different now than it was several years ago.
There's no question, you know, as you approach that time when
you say, "Well, when life's over, what will I be able to say
I did and will others view?" This gives you a chance, more
than any other opportunity in this town, to do good things.
YOu're not going to get rich. If you do deals for your
friends, you're going to go to jail. Those are all the wrong
motives anyway. The only satisfaction you can gain from this
job is doing good things for San Antonio. But that is enough,
and it's in enough quantity to offset all of those negatives
that you and I mentioned at the beginning.
H: Sure. What's your outlook for San Antonio? Probability
THORNTON 25
H: is that you're going to have another 2 years as mayor,
beginning in May of '97. You have the closing of Kelly Air
Force Base within the next few years. Water. Education
problems you've mentioned. Where do you think San ANtonio
will be, say in 5 years - economically, socially, services -
city services?
T: Let me tell you. It's true, I have at least one year,
maybe 3 years to go. But everything I'm looking at, in terms
of what I want to do, is 5, 10, 40, 60 years out. And the
thing that concerns me is, we look to what do we need to be
doing today. To address those concerns I have for the long­term
future are these: one, poverty in this city is far, far
more than it should be. The figures that I use, that are
about a year old now, are, 23 percent of our community lives
below the federal poverty level. Well, let me give that some
meaning. For an individual, that's about $7,400,'500 a year
for a single individual. For a family of four, it's about
$14,800, 14,900. Now, if 23 percent of our population lives
below that level, you ... many of us wonder how do they get by?
In fact, they themselves wonder that. But if you have an
individual making $11,000 or a family of 4 making $22,000,
they're still poor. That is a rock that those people have to
drag along, as they try to meet their personal needs, their
family's needs, just to make house payment, car payment, and
so forth. We've got to address this poverty problem. If the
trend is that 20%, 23% climbs, and poverty is getting worse,
THORNTON 26
T: this city ... there will be a time where it will explode.
Another long-term concern which I think we do fairly well in:
we're a city of 55% Hispanic, 37% Anglo; 7% black, 1% other.
So, we're basically a 63% minority community. I think we do
well in San Antonio of not ... we certainly do enjoy our
diversity, but we're not divided by it. And that is something
that we have got to work on. And I think we've done some
steps this year English Plus was a strong statement;
maintaining an affirmative action, regardless of what you call
it, with city dollars. Opposing 187 as they've done - the 187
we see California saying - we think that's wrong. Those are
things we've done this year to gain credibility in San Antonio
with some of the more active groups, for civil rights. We're
trying to do the right thing. If we ever lose that enjoymnet
of people who are different, and in fact, use the differences
as ways to divide us, we're a community that's headed for
trouble. Third thing, if we don't address water in San
Antonio, for the l ong term, we're never going to have that
economy we must have, to have the jobs for all the people who
live here. Or all the people who are being born who're going
to want a job 10/ 20/ 30 years from now. We must address
water. We have historically expected everything and done
nothing. We've had it too easy / too cheap / too long /
regarding water.
H: All you had to do was drill a hole and bring up the
aquifer water.
THORNTON 27
T: It's too easy. Other cities build dams, build lakes, buy
water. We've done nothing! Water is the third one.
The ... those three come together - education and other things
like that become important, but all of the rest of the stuff,
then, becomes simply what you have to do to create jobs and
the types of jobs you want. Education you gotta have. I
mentioned water. And if you do those things, then you're able
to attack crime, because if you've got a city filled with
poverty and division, crime's going to be a problem. If
you've got a lot of poverty, drugs are an easier option for
some people. Gangs become an option.
H: It's hard to separate education from poverty and all the
resulting ill-effects as ...
T: You can't. We have 20% of our adult population, as
staggering as that number sounds (and 20% of a million is
200,000) adults in this city who are functionally illiterate.
We have a Council District - District 5 - where half of the
adults in that district cannot read. And then we sit here and
say, "Well, we want all the jobs to move to San Antonio. We
want them to be high-paying jobs; we want them to be high­skilled
jobs." And you've got to ask yourself, "Where does
someone who can't read go?"
H: Where's the workforce?
T: That's right! And so it all comes togetehr; it all has
to come together, which is why, now that Kelly seems to be
fairly well on-track and moving along, the two things I'm
THORNTON 28
T: going to focus on are water and education.
H: Then on the Kelly, the privatization - recurring question
in my mind and, I think, some others - if the Air Force didn't
have enough business to keep Kelly and the other one in
California open, where is the work going to come from, from
privatization? From commercial?
T: That's the exciting thing, you bet!
H: From airlines?
T: Yes!
H: From airplane makers?
T; Yes!
H: And how are you going to keep that workforce here until
the work gets here?
T: Well, two things. Let me go back to the military first.
What we're seeing now in the military is the united states is
bringing back our strength. But we want to be able to
respond, literally, around the world. So we're not just going
to "sit off" soldiers in Germany and let them sit there for 4
years and be available. What we're going to do now is have
troops here, and if there's a reason for them to be in
Germany, we're going to fly them there. Or if we had to go to
Desert Storm, we're going to fly men and equipment there. Or
Ethiopia, Somalia, you know . pick a place! [laughter] We're
going to have fewer people, but we're going to be far more
agile and mobile. That mobility comes with airplanes. So,
you may see down-sizing in the military, but there's still
THORNTON 29
T: going to be ... and as we've seen with the recent purchase
of 120 C-117's, they should have a life-span of 30 years.
They're going to be modified and maintained, and I think Kelly
can do that. But what excites me more than just that military
work is, people are moving, too. And if we can capture that
commercial work, the movement of goods and the movement of
people maintaining those airplanes, I think that's the future
for us.
H: Right.
T: None of us expects to send a package to Seattle now and
have it arrive 12 days later. We don't do that anymore. We
expect to send it today and through Federal Express, UPS, DHL,
or now even the Postal Service, it'd be there tomorrow! And
those require airplanes.
H: Speaking of airplanes, what can the city do to get more
direct flights to and from San Antonio, without going through
either Dallas or some other ... changing places to New York or
L.A.? That's a frequent complaint. I love San Antonio, but
it's hard to get there.
T: The simple answer - and I'm not being smart-allecky,
because I think it's the truthful answer - is to buy more
tickets to those places. And if the airlines see enough
origins and destinations - the origin being San Antonio, from
San Antonio to 'a place', they will put a direct flight. We
have a test - one of those right now - it's from San Antonio
to New York, continental to Newark. If people don't buy the
THORNTON 30
T: tickets and utililze that flight, then I don't care what
we want, continental is not going to fly that plane back and
forth!
H: There was some talk earlier, and I think it went away, of
subsidizing a major airlines. say, "Come in here, and we'll
help you pay for direct flights to Washington and New York."
Would that be viable?
T: Yeah. That's a way to do it. And some cities have done
that, who are more remote than San Antonio. You know, we're
not without airline services, just that we have to go either
through Houston or Dallas or Salt Lake city, primarily, and
connect. But I'm not one who's ready to spend city tax
dollars to do that right now.
H: Anything else you want to cover? We're closing in on the
end of this first tape.
T: Let's eat!
H: [laughter 1
END OF TAPE I, Side 2
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