In a mayoral race full of City Hall insiders, Gina Ortiz Jones stood out from the crowd by railing against the secretive nature of the city’s Project Marvel negotiations.
While council members say she unfairly characterized the way the deal went down, on Thursday they agreed with her new guidelines for how tools like non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) will be used by the city going forward.
Jones said Wednesday that she asked City Manager Erik Walsh and City Attorney Andy Segovia to develop an administrative directive for how city staff uses the tool — part of her “continued effort to make City Hall more transparent.”
The changes are aimed at addressing the public backlash to Project Marvel negotiations, Jones said, which city staff carried out for roughly a year before the project was first presented to the public in November of 2024.
“Lots of us that just came off the campaign trail heard a lot [of concern] about why such a major investment of multibillion dollars had only come to light [last November],” Jones said.
The plan they came up with lays out a $50 million threshold for the city to use an NDA — or a confidentiality contract protecting information about a pending business deal. It also requires that city staff report back to council on activities covered under NDAs.
The changes took effect Sept. 2 when the City Attorney’s office issued the directive.
Jones also wanted to rein in City Council’s use of NDAs. But since administrative directives don’t apply to the mayor and council, she said it was recommended that their activity be addressed through the Code of Conduct council created for itself in 2024.
On Thursday the council voted unanimously to approve adding language to that code saying a council member is “strongly encouraged” not to sign an NDA in their official capacity.
“I know there’s been an instance previously, maybe not with Project Marvel, but previously, where council members have have signed NDAs,” Jones said. “I publicly, completely said I will not sign NDAs, and I strongly encourage my colleagues not to.”
What happened with Marvel
Throughout the last city election, council members frequently refuted members of the public and fellow candidates who accused them of signing an NDA on Project Marvel.
At a Feb. 26 council meeting, then-Councilman Manny Pelaez (D8) even made Segovia go through the list of top city officials to put on record none of them had either.
“Everybody in San Antonio believes that we signed NDAs because it’s just gone uncorrected for so long, and because so many people are out there just throwing that word around cynically,” Pelaez said.
In the case of Project Marvel, Pelaez said an NDA was signed on the city’s behalf by Segovia — solicited by the consultants who put together the renderings. That allowed the city to start having conversations with people who’ve done similar projects in the past.
“The discussion was, before we can intelligently come to the city or any other party and have a conversation about what it would take to build a new stadium, expand the convention center, the Alamodome, the bridge, all that, you should probably talk to a consultant,” Pelaez said.
“And so we sat down with a few of them … and they said, ‘OK, we’re going to let you guys look under the hood of some of the projects we’ve done in the past, but in order for us to feel good about that sign, sign our NDA.’”