SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones joined the 6 O’Clock News on Tuesday to discuss the Toyota manufacturing plant expansion on the South Side and the city’s search for a new San Antonio police chief.
Toyota plans to expand its San Antonio manufacturing plant, which could bring 2,000 jobs and more than $3 billion in investment, Jones said.
“Toyota’s been in our community for a very long time,” Jones said. “It’s a strong partnership.”
The city offered incentives to secure the deal, Jones said, but acknowledged the negotiations for the expansion as a “lesson learned” moment for the city.
Jones said when a city offers a company an incentive package, a city could also ask the company to return 10% of that package’s value in the form of quality-of-life investments, including childcare or community amenities.
“That code doesn’t currently allow for us to also take credit for what we have offered in the incentive package from SAWS and from CPS,” Jones said. “We lost out on $8 million worth of kind of a wraparound.”
Additionally, Jones weighed in on how the city is searching for their new police chief after William McManus retires from the San Antonio Police Department on Friday.
Jones wants to find a solution to reduce the workload on the police officers and figure out what prevention measure to invest in.
Jones cited a broader mix of civilian and sworn personnel as examples of ways to manage both workload and costs.
Not all police work requires a uniformed officer, according to Jones, and some functions could be handled by civilian employees.
Watch the full interview in the video player above.
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