SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones joined KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and John Paul Barajas Tuesday to discuss an upcoming vote on a San Antonio Water System water rate increase and a financial dispute with Spurs Sports & Entertainment.<\/p>\n
Jones made the case for supporting a SAWS rate increase set to come before the City Council on Thursday, citing aging infrastructure and public health concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need safe drinking water,\u201d Jones said. \u201cSome of our pipes are over 100 years old. We\u2019ve got a wastewater treatment plant that was built in 1965. These are not things that we need to take a risk on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said the rate increase would cost residents less than $4.70 per month from 2026 to 2029.<\/p>\n
She pointed to Corpus Christi as a cautionary tale, noting the city\u2019s bond rating was recently downgraded by Fitch after years of deferred water infrastructure investment, which made its own projects more expensive.<\/p>\n
Jones also noted the rate increase would expand SAWS\u2019 financial assistance uplift program from 125% to 150% of the federal poverty level, benefiting lower-income residents in some of the city\u2019s oldest neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Jones also addressed a letter she sent to Spurs ownership demanding $5 million owed to the city after Spurs Sports & Entertainment failed to deliver a Major League Soccer franchise.<\/p>\n
With the city facing a $131 million budget gap over the next two years, Jones said collecting the debt is a matter of fiscal responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to talk about raising property taxes on folks when one of the things we can do is just go get the money that we\u2019re owed,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
A response from Spurs ownership is expected by the end of the week, according to Jones.<\/p>\n
Watch the full interview in the video player above.<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones joined KSAT anchors Myra Arthur and John Paul Barajas Tuesday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6923,39171,6,969,474,4075,4074,39172,93624,534,6217],"class_list":["post-763041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio-spurs","tag-basketball","tag-gina-ortiz-jones","tag-ksat-qa","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sanantonio","tag-sanantoniospurs","tag-saq","tag-saws","tag-spurs","tag-spurs-sports-entertainment"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116763513587282855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}