SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Venting his frustrations on social media, a San Antonio councilman laid out his opinion on \u201cwhat the hell is wrong with City Council right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
By his reckoning, a big part of it is council members\u2019 discord over Project Marvel and the proposed, downtown Spurs arena leeching into everything else they do.<\/p>\n
Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) posted a series of videos Thursday night after he said another councilmember \u201creally pissed me off\u201d by pushing an item on a senior center in his district to late into a more than six-hour meeting and then leaving the dais for part of the public comment portion of another item. Though McKee-Rodriguez did not name the councilmember, the actions matched Phyllis Viagran (D3).<\/p>\n
The East Side councilman accused Viagran of pulling his item because she wanted to \u201cteach me a lesson\u201d over his stance on a special tax capture district, which council members agreed<\/a> to extend and use to buy land for the proposed Spurs arena, as well as fund other projects. <\/p>\n McKee-Rodriguez said that was the issue when Viagran was absent for part of the public comment. <\/p>\n Her actions, he said, showed a \u201ctotal disrespect\u201d for the people who had signed up to speak and \u201cseniors who did not deserve to be held hostage over political debate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut the root goes back to how personal Project Marvel has become. Some council members feel like you are shooting their cousins if you disagree with them on Project Marvel,\u201d he said near the end of his third video of the night. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd if we can\u2019t have a real conversation, if I can\u2019t disagree with you, if I can\u2019t make an amendment to an item that impacts my constituents, without you trying to f— me and my constituents over, I can\u2019t work with you. And unfortunately, that is where most people are with each other at this point.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though this is the first time that it\u2019s impacted me in this significant of a way, there is this culture of sabotage that I absolutely hate and don\u2019t know how to heal.\u201d<\/p>\n Viagran has been one of the staunchest advocates of the plan to bring a Spurs arena to Hemisfair, while McKee-Rodriguez has been a skeptic.<\/p>\n He and Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones were the only votes at Thursday\u2019s meeting against the extension of the Midtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ)<\/a> and funding for the Spurs arena land purchase and other projects at the San Antonio Zoo, Botanical Garden, and Brackenridge Park.<\/p>\n McKee-Rodriguez\u2019s opposition was already known<\/a> heading into Thursday\u2019s meeting where there were multiple TIRZ-related votes on the council\u2019s consent agenda, which is used to pass non-controversial items en masse, without debate.<\/p>\n One of those votes was to an extend the life of the Inner City TIRZ and use to help build a new senior center and aquatics center in McKee-Rodriguez\u2019s East Side council district. The councilman said his office had coordinated bringing about 20 older residents to the meeting to see it happen.<\/p>\n But after Jones pulled the Midtown TIRZ vote off the consent agenda for discussion, Viagran pulled the Inner City TIRZ as well. McKee-Rodriguez then pulled a vote related to a TIRZ in Viagran\u2019s district.<\/p>\n