Rising Lonestars interviewed San Antonio Councilmember Teri Castillo to discuss her nomination to the RLS Top 10 in July. Councilmember Castillo told us about her efforts to protect women seeking abortions, her background, and her experience as a San Antonio councilmember.
Transcript
Teri Castillo
Teri Castillo, San Antonio’s District five city council member.
Simon Nichols
Thank you so much again for speaking to me. So you were nominated for July edition of Raising Lonestars with a resolution introduced aimed at prioritizing decriminalizing women for abortions. Please tell me a little bit about that resolution, what it does and how it came about.
Teri Castillo
Yes. With the overturning of Roe v Wade, we’ve seen an uprising all throughout Texas and the nation and in San Antonio of people taking to the streets to challenge the overturning of Roe v Wade and a call for protection for women in the nation, in San Antonio and in Texas. And what that looks like for the folks in Texas is ensuring that at the local level we are not using our dollars to track and criminalize women who have sought an abortion or for those who have practice.
Teri Castillo
Right. So we’re talking about medical officials as well. So what we did is we drafted a resolution and passed a resolution which essentially directs the city manager to not prioritize criminalizing women, using city resources to track women who have sought access to their reproductive health care. And by giving that direction, we’re telling our city manager that this is not where we want our public dollars to go.
Teri Castillo
So in turn, right, it’s not going to be criminalized because as a body we’ve directed our city manager to not put forward any dollars into tracking women, criminalizing women who have or seeking an abortion or who have had one.
Simon Nichols
Gotcha. Thank you. And I know that the city of Austin recently passed a resolution also aimed at prioritizing abortions on the city level. We spoke to Councilmember Tito Vela, who is involved in that resolution in Austin. Can you tell me a little bit about how the resolution that you introduced compares to the Austin resolution? Because I know there was some work put into adapting it for the city of San Antonio.
Teri Castillo
Yes, absolutely. The city of Austin, chief of People and Vanessa created a framework for other municipalities throughout Texas to look at prioritizing decriminalization of women who have had an abortion. So by relying on that framework and looking at our City of San Antonio charter, we drafted a similar resolution that calls to prioritize the monetization of women who are seeking medical care.
Teri Castillo
So the City of Austin, people invested, did create that framework and for us to rely on and then add that to our city’s charter.
Simon Nichols
Gotcha. Well, thank you very much for that. My question for you, so you represent San Antonio’s District five, which I believe is the poorest district in San Antonio and one which has been historically underrepresented within council and just within city government in general. You talk a little bit about what it’s like to represent District five.
Teri Castillo
Yes, absolutely. District five is our city’s most economically poor city council district, but our most culturally rich city council district. And we’ve had decades of disinvestment and so with that, we have community members who have been waiting decades, if not generations, for basic needs, like sidewalks, streets and drainage. And throughout our first year in city council, we’ve been able to secure our drainage projects, investments in our streets and sidewalks.
Teri Castillo
So improving the quality of life for our residents materially is definitely has been a priority and something that we’ve secured for our constituency. No doubt there are folks who, you know, have lost trust within the political process and rightfully so. And so allowing residents of District five to allow me the opportunity to demonstrate to them that there is a better district that’s possible.
Teri Castillo
There is a better someone going on. That is possible. Has has been a great experience listening and learning from constituents and debriefing right on specific things that we’re voting on and taking up and walking them through how a lot of the victories that we’ve had like for example, our office nearly doubled the bond investment. We secured more funding than any other city council district.
Teri Castillo
And when I’m talking to my community about these winds and the historic investment that we brought, I’m always sure to highlight that it’s been a fight that we weren’t given this this nice budget. We weren’t given the most amount of funding. It was it came with a lot of debate. It came with community coming into the process. And ultimately, that’s how we secured those material wins for our community.
Teri Castillo
It’s working collectively with community to ensure that we fight for our fair share of investment. And that’s how we’ve been able to make such historic investment and movement in our community.
Simon Nichols
Got you. To me, you are the perfect example of of how city council members should come to come about. In my mind, because you are involved in your community, you’re passionate and you’re extremely welleducated on the topics that affect your constituents. So it’s a it’s members, activists from their own community who become involved in government, which speaking of which, you graduated from the University of Texas in continue with not only a bachelor’s in history, but also a master’s in history.
Simon Nichols
Can you tell me a little bit about how that about how education in history influenced your career, both as an activist in District five and as a local elected official?
Teri Castillo
Yes, absolutely. I believe that when we ground ourselves in history, we have an understanding of the ways in which oftentimes we see a lot of bad policy refashioned under the guise of progress. Right. So there are many systems and patterns that we’ve seen in the past. There are case studies that exist where we’ve seen how economic investment within poor neighborhoods that have started and how that can impact established communities.
Teri Castillo
We have these patterns. We’ve seen it happen throughout history, and we need to look to that past to move forward to ensure that we don’t perpetuate the same issues of inequity, economic segregation, so on and so forth. Recognizing that historic right for communities like mine, while we have been essentially, you know, neglected, right. And exploited, whether it’s foreign labor land or a language that we’ve always fought back, that there have always been communities organizing.
Teri Castillo
And these things don’t just happen to us and to our communities. But people have always asked questions, gotten together, have always challenged power, have always organized and highlighting how many of these victories, again, like with the bond that it took, organized to win, that it wasn’t given to us. I didn’t just actually be received. But there’s a history of of challenging these systems.
Teri Castillo
And when we reflect on the past and see how some of these things have been done before, I believe in this community ahead of the game. Right. Because we’ve seen this before. We heard this before. And how do we amend and adapt to to challenge it, to get community what we need to be?
Simon Nichols
And then I have a little unscripted question here, which is just coming from talking about challenging those repeated occurrences throughout history. One of the topics that I think you emphasized when you were running was countering gentrification within your community and addressing housing issues within District five. And obviously, housing is becoming an increasingly pertinent problem with throughout all of the state of Texas.
Simon Nichols
Do you have anything to say about that experience in District five, specifically in what you’re trying to do in San Antonio to counter that?
Teri Castillo
Yes. So I mentioned, right, we are the most economically poor city council district and we are like many cities throughout the nation. Right. We’re not unique in that. We’re the seat is outpacing our segment wages. And with District five in particular, we have a large senior population. So what our office has done has put forth the council consideration request to explore a program called Saves.
Teri Castillo
Right. So Texas Constitution allows folks over the age of that in lieu of their property tax payment that they can volunteer up to the state’s federal minimum wage. Right. So a senior can volunteer, which we have many who already do. And our senior centers. And that can add up to, for example, $ that they can receive as a reduction off of their city property tax.
Teri Castillo
So we’re exploring alternatives to ensure that our seniors in District five can age in place and that is now moving on to the next process. All of the members voted to move it forward. And now we get to tease out what that program can look like and what volunteer opportunities qualify. Right. And again, right when we’re talking about seniors, we also understand that some folks are homebound.
Teri Castillo
So some seniors can’t leave the house. So what the Texas Constitution also allows is that you can have someone volunteer in your place. And so if you have a grandchild or there’s a nonprofit organization interested, you can be potentially sponsored and someone can volunteer in your place. And then the seniors will receive that reduction in their city property tax.
Teri Castillo
So that’s one piece that we’re using to tackle challenging displacement and to ensure that our seniors can age in place. So we look forward to that being used out and developed and bringing some much needed property tax relief to our seniors.