The city, county, state and federal government all have different scoring criteria and budgets for flood control. But policymakers largely agree that most neighborhood flood control projects are the result of years of lobbying and political capital from communities that have already been affected by a major flood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI waited tables at my parents\u2019 restaurant off Fredericksburg Road in Five Points, which used to be ground zero for floods in San Antonio,\u201d state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio) told residents seeking advice on how to push for such dollars after the June floods that left 13 people dead in San Antonio. \u201cThat neighborhood never gave up, if you go [there] today, it\u2019s got tremendous flood control.\u201d<\/p>\n
But among the problems with that strategy, however, is that some of the communities at the highest risk haven\u2019t yet lived through a deadly flood event. By the time one happens, the solution is likely years or decades away.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrainage projects are not inexpensive, they\u2019re expensive, because we\u2019re not only fixing the current problem,\u201d the city\u2019s Engineering Projects Manager Victoria Escobedo said at the advisory board meeting Tuesday night. \u201cWe\u2019re also fixing what historically has been built upon many years of neglect, of not addressing it originally.\u201d <\/p>\n
A race against the clock<\/p>\n
Huddled in the bowels of City Tower, the board was hustling to put the finishing touches on their new scoring matrix.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/StormWaterManagementAdvisoryBoard_COSAFloodingDrainage_12_01.13.2026_AmberEsparza.jpg\")
Bianca Maldonado, Storm Water Management Advisory Board representative for D7, listens during a meeting Tuesday night. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/StormWaterManagementAdvisoryBoard_COSAFloodingDrainage_02_01.13.2026_AmberEsparza.jpg\")
Public Works Director Art Reinhardt attends his first board meeting since taking over the position in January. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
Its council- and mayor-appointed members<\/a> bring all kinds of backgrounds in flood control, conservation and water engineering. Together they had plenty of varying perspectives on how factors like ease of completion or environmental impact should affect a project\u2019s scoring.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a fundamental values system. What do you value?\u201d said Suzanne Brennan Scott, a former executive at the San Antonio River Authority who holds one of the mayor\u2019s appointed seats. \u201cYou value public safety, of course. But then after you meet those criteria, do you value environmental, natural resources? I think we do as a community.\u201d<\/p>\n Underlying the discussion, however, was a sense of concern surrounding the prioritization of flood control dollars altogether. <\/p>\n The goal was to have the scoring matrix done before the city\u2019s next bond program \u2014 one of the main sources of funding for local flood control and drainage projects \u2014 but the timing of that bond may be sooner than expected.<\/p>\n San Antonio typically operates on a five-year bond cycle, with the last $1.2 billion bond<\/a> approved in 2022. They allow the city to borrow money against projections of future growth, and are used to fund all kinds of projects across the city, helping bring voters on board.<\/p>\n The 2022 bond program put nearly $170 million<\/a> toward 23 flood control and drainage projects, which were selected by a bond committee of members appointed by council members, who started their work roughly a year out from the election.<\/p>\n This time around, city leaders have said they want the next bond election to come sooner than the five-year cycle, because they need it to fund roughly $220 million in infrastructure related to Project Marvel, such as a parking garage, streets and sidewalks. At one point they discussed even holding it in May 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cI am getting a little nervous about us being behind the curve, if y\u2019all are being asked to have projects ranked and ready to go,\u201d Scott said to city staff at the board meeting.<\/p>\n City staff didn\u2019t have a clear answer on the timing of the next bond, but Public Works Director Art Reinhardt<\/a>, who just stepped into the role this month, said the City Council is expected to discuss it in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n Committee members made plans to attempt to wrap up the scoring criteria in their next meeting, having already bumped this one up on the schedule in an effort to hurry things along.<\/p>\n At the same time, an August financial analysis projected<\/a> that the next bond capacity could also be much lower due to slowed economic growth<\/a>, with about $500 million to divide up for the various projects instead of $1.2 billion in 2022.<\/p>\n That\u2019s given members of the Storm Water Advisory Board even more concern about what resources will be available once the projects are ranked.<\/p>\n \u201cI share the same concern \u2026 about where we factor in,\u201d Maldonado chimed in after Scott. \u201cWe are life safety. And if the city is going to pursue a bond for the marvelous project downtown, what does that mean to everything else?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Headed into the city\u2019s next bond, San Antonio is creating a new scoring matrix that aims to take…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":523282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,107400,96063,16217,129886,13123,7202,7203,232733,358,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-523281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-art-reinhardt","tag-bond-election","tag-flood","tag-flood-control","tag-project-marvel","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-storm-water-management-advisory-board","tag-texas","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115911693764676305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/StormWaterManagementAdvisoryBoard_COSAFloodingDrainage_08_01.13.2026_AmberEsparza.jpg\")
City of San Antonio Storm Water Management Advisory Board members Roger Andrade, right, and Bernardino N. Villasenor listen during a SWMAB meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n