By Edmond Ortiz
City Council will have a special meeting at 9 a.m. Aug. 17 on whether to call a Nov. 3 election on the city’s previous pledge to allocate nearly $500 million in specific-use funds for the San Antonio Spurs’ planned downtown arena. The meeting is to be held at City Council chambers, 114 W. Commerce St., and like all other local governments will be livestreamed at the city’s public channel.
What you should know
Council has until a state deadline of 5 p.m. Aug. 17 to call any special Nov. 3 election. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has tried rallying council and public support to hold a public referendum on an August 2025 council vote where the city opted to commit $489 million to help the Spurs finance a new arena.
The NBA team and Bexar County have also pledged funds to build the venue, which would anchor the proposed Project Marvel sports and entertainment district.
In recent weeks, Jones has pushed for council to call a public election on the city’s committed financial assistance for the Spurs arena, questioning whether the city government can afford to do so while it currently faces a $158 million budget deficit and shrinking bonding capacity.
Jones also has reiterated concerns that she and other Project Marvel have voiced since the Spurs first proposed a new downtown arena and complementary mixed-use development last year.
Those concerns include a perceived fear that the city is committing general budget funds for the arena, and that voters did not get a say at the ballot box on the city’s share, unlike Bexar County, which held a November 2025 election to reallocate a portion of hotel occupancy and vehicle rental tax revenue for the project.
To be sure, the Aug. 17 meeting agenda item proposes council call a Nov. 3 election, and spells out the city’s envisioned sources of financial aid for the new Spurs arena:
*Operating rent from the Spurs lease of the arena
*Rents from the city’s ground lease of city-owned property within the new sports & entertainment district, which is eyed for a segment of Hemisfair
*Revenue from the Hemisfair Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, and
*Revenue from Project Finance Zone No. 2
Based on the currently proposed financing model, no general operating budget funds from the city or the county are being pledged for construction of a new Spurs arena. Such budget funds support essential daily city functions such as road maintenance and public safety — things not affected by the aforementioned specific-use revenue sources.
What they are saying
Some council members such as Marc Whyte and Misty Spears have pushed back on the idea of an election, saying a majority of San Antonio voters who cast a ballot in Bexar County’s fall 2025 budget endorsed the county’s financial commitment.
Spurs officials also chimed in with a public letter, echoing sentiments from the likes of Whyte and Spears, adding that it was time to move on and focus on other elements of Project Marvel.
Some observers, such as local campaign consultant Andrew Solano have suggested that Jones is using semantics, especially in conflating specific-use funds with general budget funds, and misleading the council and the public on the need for a public election.
However, Jones has been adamant that voters deserve a voice on a crucial matter, such as Spurs arena financing, and in a critical time for the city and its struggles with a budget shortfall. She has held what she called “listening sessions” in different parts of town the last few days, highlighting these and other budget-related challenges and a need to see whether San Antonio voters fully back city financial support of a new Spurs arena.
Jones added another listening session to the schedule – 7-8 p.m. Aug. 12 at Blanco BBQ, 13259 Blanco Road.
An Aug. 6 memo that Jones sent to city staff reveals that she also hopes to have council call a special Nov. 3 election where San Antonio voters would be asked to divert funds remaining in the embattled Ready to Work program to qualified programs under the state’s Better Jobs Act, which allows local Texas governments to use specific funds for workforce development, job training, literacy, education, and after-school programs.
The overriding state law accommodates local programs, such as the voter-approved Ready to Work workforce development initiative, but critics of that program say it has not met lofty expectations.
