Empowering Conversations with Gina Ortiz-Jones

Welcome to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're your hosts, Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a realtor and lender here in San Antonio. But most importantly, we're working moms just like you.

This podcast is all about creating a space where we can come together, share stories, and learn from each other. We love connecting with local moms in business Hearing about their journeys and how they're balancing it all, because let's be honest, it's not always easy, but it's so worth it.

Before we dive in today's episode, we're excited to share some big news with you all.

Our business community and coworking memberships are officially open. Whether you're looking for a supportive community of moms in business or need a beautiful space to work and grow, we've got just what you need here at Working Moms of San Antonio. You can visit the link in our show notes. Or workingmomsofsanantonio.com/membership for more info.

Now onto today's episode. Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's get started.

Welcome to this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast, We are here today with Gina Ortiz Jones, um, a mayoral candidate for the upcoming San Antonio mayor race happening May 3rd.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and so I am going to just turn it over to her to talk a little bit about herself and her background and all the things.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a real treat to, uh, to be with you all and thanks for the service that you provide, right? I think this, um, support is always very important. Um, you know, I myself was raised by a single mom. Um, And it's funny when I saw working moms, it's almost like saying working, working, right? Right. Like, aren't moms all working? That's right. I know my mom was. But yeah, you know, I am— so I grew up on the far west side of town. I went to John Jay High School. My, my story, our family story, though, really starts when my mom came here over 40 years ago. She graduated from the number one university in the Philippines but wanted a chance at the American dream. And that the opportunity presented itself as to come here as a domestic helper. But she knew, she was like, even if I get there in that capacity, If I'm willing to work hard, the sky's the limit. Um, and she just ingrained, uh, that, that mentality, that work ethic in my sister and I raised us by herself. Um, I'd like to say there's a special place in heaven for single moms. That place is probably open bar as it, as it should be. Right. Um, and she just reminded us that we were lucky, not smart, lucky to be born here. We'd have to give back. Um, I was proud to serve in the Air Force, served in the Air Force later on as the undersecretary. Um, my sister serves in the Navy to this day, so we're a proud service family. Um, but you know, all of my entire, my, all of my public service has shown me that true national and, and economic security really starts at home, starts with smart, healthy kids.

It does.

Starts with government officials that understand they're accountable to the people. Um, and it certainly starts with more transparency, uh, around how our tax dollars are spent in our community, right? Yes. To make sure we're all on board with, with the way that we're going. In the military, you'd say rowing, same way, same day.

Yeah.

Um, But I, you know, and, and I wanted to specifically come on and, and talk to you all in, in part the things that I'd like to, to work on in, and frankly to, to make sure our city is, is moving forward and accounting for all of the talents in, in our community. And I got to see some of these things kind of firsthand up close when I was the Undersecretary of the Air Force. And let me just to like back up for folks that like aren't super familiar with that. So the Undersecretary of the Air Force, even though I grew up here, Air Force ROTC scholarship took me to John Jay High School, served in the Air Force as an intelligence officer, deployed to Iraq. My entire career had been in national security. But again, the opportunities that allowed me to grow up healthy, get an education, serve our country started right here. Right. Proud product of public education. I went to, I grew up on the, the, again, the far west side, Adams Hill Elementary School, Pease Middle School, John Jay High School.

Pease Middle School always beat us in volleyball. Oh, I went to Saul Ross. Yeah.

Oh, you were right down the street.

Right down the street. Yeah.

Well, you know what I'm talking about.

I do.

I do. You know how, you know how how much our city has changed and, and frankly how much it hasn't changed.

Yeah.

Right. And we could do a lot better than, than what we're doing. And I look forward to providing that, that leadership. But yeah, I, you know, I saw this as the undersecretary. So the undersecretary, I, to boil it down, you're the number 2 over the Department of the Air Force and the Space Force. I think that's, I would argue very important leadership and management experience, managed $173 billion budget, led 600,000 people. But fundamentally I say that job boiled down to answering two questions every day, which is one, do my people have what they need to be successful to do the nation's work? And two, are we making smart investments? I would argue those are fundamentally the same two questions that a mayor has to ask. And when we are asking those questions, I think we also have to ask how we are investing in people and how we are investing to make sure certainly our next generation is as strong and as healthy as they can be. So I have also taught the military, I think shows you, you gotta have a plan, right? Right.

Yeah, for sure.

You can't run for office, certainly— a, a, a city, uh, our size. I mean, more people live in our city than in 10 states.

And we continue to grow.

And we continue to grow.

We continue to grow.

And, but sprawl is not growth, right? Sprawl is not growth. Mm-hmm. And we've gotta make sure that we are addressing the things that I would argue are constraining our growth.

Mm-hmm.

Um, over half the kids in our community are not reading at level.

Yes.

Their math skills are not at level. Uh, 95,000 families are housing insecure, challenged to play, pay the rent, right? Pay the mortgage. And we got 67,000 folks on that waitlist for affordable housing, right? Yeah. And so we've got some real challenges. I would argue as well, frankly, working moms, you know what working moms need and kids? Well, working moms in general, but we need healthcare. We need OB-GYNs in our community. And so we can talk about big major economic investments and whatnot, but if we're not also talking about the ways in which the lack of access to reproductive healthcare in our community is constraining our growth, then we're not, We're not being serious. Because one of the other challenges is, you know, we are, we have seen since, for the first time since 2000, excuse me, 2022, that was the first time in our state we saw an increase in teenage pregnancy, the first time in 15 years. Really? I didn't know that. And that was because of the abortion ban. I mean, this is, that's just a fact, right? And so, but when you look at a map, and that's really important in our community 'cause we're so economically segregated.

Okay. Right?

I mean, you know that, you saw Russ, I went to J.A., I went to, When you look at a map, the area where the kids are not reading at level, math skills are not at level, and then you also overlay teenage pregnancy, same, same areas.

Same areas.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Right?

So when we're thinking about our community and the growth, we've gotta think about, you know, making sure that we also address these longstanding inequities in our community. And we remove barriers that prevent folks like working moms doing all that they can do, right? Which is why one of the things I said I wanted to do as mayor when we're looking at that non-discrimination ordinance, right, is adding pregnancy to that.

Right?

This is something that we have seen in other communities. And certainly I saw this at the, as the undersecretary, the ways in which kind of regulations around that are not necessarily rooted in, and frankly sometimes they're not rooted in anything. They're based in like assumptions. But really kind of peeling back these things that are preventing everybody in our community from doing all that they would like to do and serving, and, and having frankly as, as a strong of a, of a, of a, um, personal finance situation as, as possible. But I think it's really upon leaders to, to make sure that we are, um, doing everything we can to invest in, in young people and removing barriers that are preventing people from doing that.

I agree.

Yeah.

I mean, it's hard to get forward when you don't have the beginning, the, the foundation to start with.

Yeah. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so, so one of the things that's really important, I think, in our community, um, is a pre-K for essay, right?

Yes.

Um, and when I mentioned earlier a plan, I, you know, my, I've put this on my website because again, look, even if we had a different president, we would still have the stats that I talked about. Mm-hmm. Even if we had a different governor, we'd still have the stats that I talked about. So we know what we're dealing with. We know the challenges and opportunities in our community. And so I would argue now we just, we need leadership to move us forward on those things. So first 100 days, I want to, um, I wanna get the answer to the question of, hey, how much, how much talent are we leaving on the table as a result? And that's how we should think about it. How much talent are we leaving on the table as a result of not fully funding Pre-K for SA, right? How many kids are there out there that, that would, um, would qualify, would not just qualify for, but qualify for it because of their age, but are, are not getting that service. And then secondly, if we wanted to pay for that bill, what's the bill?

Mm-hmm.

Right? Um, because look, if we're gonna talk about a, a multi-billion dollar publicly financed arena again, Right?

Yes.

Just one more time.

Just a little bit more. Right? Like, then we should talk about the other infrastructure that we know is fundamentally important to our long-term economic strength. And that's always going to be smart, healthy kids.

Right?

We can't say— you can't tell Northside what to do. You can't tell Harlandale what to do. But what we can do is give them the best possible product. Yes.

Right? To start with. Yes.

100%. I think it's also really important, you know, and I saw this as the undersecretary, how important, you know, early childhood education is, but also just childcare.

Yes.

Yes. Uh, and, and not surprisingly, um, you know, us being Military City USA, uh, I think it's important that that was the number one issue that service members would raise to me during town halls. Mm-hmm.

Uh, well, even civilians, I would say, like, I, I, as a working mom, my kids are now in, in high school. Yeah. So I don't have the childcare issue, but I remember like it was the most, it was more than my mortgage.

Right.

To put the child, my child into, right. Um, childcare.

Yeah.

And like two, oh my goodness. I had to beg my parents, can you please watch them? Like, it was a lot.

Well, right. Yeah. And that's the thing is like, not, not everyone has, you know, a abuelita to watch them, right? Not everybody has that support structure. And certainly our military members that are, that are not here that maybe don't have their family here. And I really, you know, when I was the under, I wanted to make sure that my other colleagues really understood this issue in the way that it was impacting our ability to keep talent.

Right.

Because we always say, hey, you know, we want to support you, we do this and do that. But we didn't think about these other, these other services and how they were impacting it. So I, I, To me, the 3 most important questions a leader asks: why, why not, and where's the data? Okay. Mm-hmm. And I, for all these folks to be raising this as an issue, I was like, well, let's, let's look at the data. What does the data show us? Mm-hmm. And the data showed us, um, Joint Base San Antonio had the longest waitlist of any of the Department of the Air Force, um, childcare centers. The longest. Yeah. Because I wanted to look at it. I was like, show me the top 10 every month because I wanna be able to tell people when they say, hey, this is, this is something that we've been talking about. I was like, hey, I know we're keeping an eye on it. So I wanted to see, and what are the things that were challenging them? In some places it really was childcare workers, right? Couldn't find enough childcare workers. Now I would argue that's probably also a function of pay, right?

Yes.

They're out there, you just gotta pay them.

Right.

This is sometimes a very simple, a simple challenge. So I know we worked hard to do that, you know, implemented policies like, hey, if you're a childcare worker with us, childcare for your own kid, your first is free, right? So how can we incentivize people to stay with us? But the other thing that was so— that was important data-wise is when I had the folks look at the data, we found that— oh, also important to know, of the, of the women serving in the Department of the, of the Air Force, if they are married, 80% of them are likely married to another service member, right? That's not always the case for the men, right? And so what we found is if a female service member already had a kid on a waitlist, at the CDC, at the child care center, if they got pregnant again, the likelihood of them separating increased by 3 times. So this—

Really?

Yeah. So this— because it was already hard, right? They're already on— like you already are dealing with a need and you're like, well, I mean, if that kid's on the waitlist, the likelihood of having 2 kids now on the waitlist is not great. And so it really— so that is not only a challenge for that one service member, it's a challenge for that serving family.

Yep.

Right?

So I— and if folks remember a couple of years ago, we tried to recruit a— military headquarters here, right, related to, to space functions. And they had a matrix. This was before I got to the Pentagon, but at the Pentagon I really tried to understand it. But I remember reading in our local news when they did their kind of their grading sheet or their matrix of, of where we did well and where we did not, we got dinged. We ultimately didn't get the headquarters, but one of the things they dinged us on was childcare.

Yes.

Right.

So it wasn't available. Yeah.

Well, it, the, the, the line was too long on top of other things. And so this is something that is not only important to keeping us Military City USA, um, but I think it's also important, frankly, as you point out, for all working families, right? Mm-hmm. So that's why the other thing I wanna do, first 100 days, and people can go to my website to see this, GinaOrtizJones.com. First 100 days, hey, how quickly those, those schools that have been recently shuttered, how quickly can we transition those to Pre-K for SA or childcare?

Absolutely.

Right? Like, let's get moving.

Right?

Yeah. Some of this is not rocket science.

It, you know, the infrastructure's there. Let's just use it.

That's exactly. And if we can't, you know, but also part of this, as you all know, is like if somebody brings something to you and says, hey, this is a problem, you have to tell people what you're trying to do to solve it.

To fix it.

Yes.

Right. Exactly.

Yeah. It was always a pain. So like you bring me a problem but no solution. Come on, man.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

We can all complain, but what are we gonna do? Right.

Yeah. And so like, let's go ask the people that have the thing that we might, that might be able to help us. Like, hey, what about this? Yeah. Can we do this? And, um, and we've got a big bond coming, coming up potentially.

Right.

So how might we think about those investments in, in that context? Um, so I think those are, those are frequently just like common sense things that yes, would go a long way to helping working moms, but also just families across the board, no matter where you land.

A hundred percent.

It, it helps you. It helps. Yeah. It helps people.

So a hundred percent.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Um, you know, some of the other things that I think are really important, I mean, look, this is, um, uh, when, when we think about, um, uh, working moms, I think expanding the breadth of opportunities and, and working with, um, you know, companies to the greatest extent possible. One of the things we have a lot of in our community are military spouses, right? Yes. And so how can we, how can we best support them? I think, you know, I, I would be very, because again, it's all about quality of life, right? Like folks don't have to stay in the military. They don't have to stay in San, they don't even have, they don't have to stay in San Antonio. No. So how can we really show a commitment to making sure that we're helping especially women with kids on like 5 and under? That's like a really hard time. I mean, it's, yes. Preach to the choir here.

Yes.

Yeah. Like that, that is the most challenging, right?

Yeah.

Um, so we've gotta, I think, um, make sure that we're thinking about that in the, in the context, not just of childcare, but of, of economic strength.

Yeah.

Well, and that's why we created Working Moms of San Antonio was because we wanted an environment where our kids are welcomed.

Yeah.

Yeah. So at our events, at our place, kids are always welcome just because as a mom, um, in my industry it, it, it's mainly men.

Yeah.

You know, so coming in with a baby on my hip or have, I mean, he's sick, I can't drop him off at daycare. Like it, it just wasn't understood.

Yeah.

So that's why, you know, yeah, our, our space is always welcoming to, yeah, children.

And I would argue that, I mean, working moms or moms in general are sort of like an underestimated demographic.

Yep.

When in fact you find that the women and moms are kind of like the decision drivers.

Yeah.

Right.

Oh yeah. And so, I mean, like in my relationship, we would obviously have a conversation if we were gonna move, but I feel like ultimately if I said like, hey, this isn't good for the kids here anymore, or we can't get child childcare, we can't do those things, we'd probably move.

Yeah. Right.

You know, absolutely.

100%.

And so I think it's important that you're addressing those things.

Yeah.

And really seeing the moms in the community.

To your point, I mean, that is, I mean, when I served in the military, I served under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Mm-hmm. Um, and I'll never forget that experience. Uh, when I showed up to Boston University, had to sign a piece of paper that said I will not engage in homosexual behavior. Yeah. Because Don't Ask, Don't Tell was the policy at the time. Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, so having had the experience of, look, I'm willing to die for my country, but I can't be honest about who I am, right? What that experience also showed for me, and I've always carried this, is if I have the opportunity to lead, right, I wanna be very cognizant of who am I not hearing from, right? Because I had that experience and the policy at the time meant I couldn't speak. So now I'm always very cognizant of, okay, who's at my table? What information do we have? What assumptions are we making, right? And if there isn't somebody that is at my table that should be, why am I, how can I get them to the table? And I think that's a really important perspective for our community where so many communities have been left behind to include working moms. I think some of these things are also, they kind of present themselves, um, pretty innocuously until you think about it for 2 seconds.

Right, right.

So perfect example. Um, one night I was at the Pentagon and, um, the senior folks, uh, you, you get to review a couple of, um, files, uh, applications, excuse me, for folks that wanna go, that are enlisted, that wanna become officers. And I had a book of 10. There was only one woman in that entire book., and in her waiver section, she had to submit a waiver because she was pregnant. Now I thought to myself, it was like 7 o'clock at night too. And I was like, why do I have to know she's pregnant?

Like, why is that? Why does it matter?

Why does it matter? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so I, I literally went back to my, because I know what, as soon as it happened, I knew what it was, what, what the impact would've been. Because like, you know, to submit a waiver, the, um, if you need to submit a waiver, that person making that decision is like, well, I'm never gonna, I need a waiver. I'm never gonna get selected. So they don't apply.

Yeah.

Right. And, or, or you've got a real, you've got a commander that says, well, I really want my person to be selected. Do I put forward the person that needs a waiver or not? So, right. So then there's another level of selection, potentially selection out. Those are just the ways in which these things like impact people's either the decision to, to do these things or not. So that means like we are not fully looking at the talent.

Absolutely. You're missing out.

That's missing out. So I went back to my team and I said, hey, show me how me knowing that she's pregnant makes us, um, break things faster and kill people faster.

Yeah.

Like, how does this make us a more lethal Air Force? Um, fast forward, they went back and the policy is somebody cannot go to officer training when they are pregnant.

Why?

Somebody, somebody had, one second. Somebody had interpreted that to mean, oh, they have to tell us if they're pregnant when they apply. So when you go to the training, the training is quite physical and quite rigorous. So I can understand that it makes sense that you would not go when you are pregnant. However, that doesn't mean you're not gonna be pregnant forever.

Right?

Yeah.

I know.

It's not a permanent condition.

Right.

And oh, by the way, that's like that process to go through that was like 9, 10, 9, 12 months, the application process. Got it. So by the time somebody applied and they were, um, if they were selected, they don't— would already not be pregnant.

Right.

So like the idea, so, so to mute point at that completely, completely. But, but again, the idea that somebody, that it wasn't actually a thing and then somebody made it a thing that was preventing us from accessing talent. And so we ended up, fast forward, once I, once I found that, we ended up changing that policy. So now doesn't matter your status when you apply. And if you are selected at the end, if you happen to be pregnant, we'll hold your spot for 15 months.

Yeah.

So you can figure out, you know, what you need to do. But the point is we need to be like, we've got some big challenges and opportunities as a country. Yeah. We've gotta be, we've gotta have leaders that are very discerned to your point. They see those things, they see the impact of it through their lived experience or just common sense. And they're like, no, no, no, that doesn't make sense. Why? Why? We're not just gonna go along to get along.

Yeah.

Um, and we've gotta look at how we can better tap into the talent in our community. And oh, by the way, if we see something, we change it.

Yeah. I mean, that story makes me feel like so much of government is probably up to interpretation. It's been this way for so long. And so you need somebody that's really going to question like, hey, this is interesting. Why is this important? Why does this matter? And what can we do? Because we can't just leave things up to interpretation. And it's like, hey, this has been this way for 50 years. So this is the way.

Let's keep going.

And yeah, I mean, that's not the way we evolve as a society.

100%. Yeah.

And so I'll be honest, one of the, when you leave those, um, those kinds of positions, you get like nice awards and whatnot. One of my prized possessions though was I got a very nice, um, thank you note. Really no bigger than that when you fold it in half.

Yeah.

And it was from women that were so thankful that I changed that policy because they had been trying to get that policy changed for years. And they signed it, their names, their rank, and then their circumstance. They said, you know, I blah, blah, blah. I tried, I tried applying for OTS, but I kept getting pregnant each time, so I had to take myself out. Or somebody that said, I was, I was going through the program and I was my commander's pick until they found out I was pregnant and then I was pulled. Right. So people who had had opportunities denied to them.

Yeah.

Because of this flawed policy. That, you know, it took real leadership to say, hey, that's not right, we're gonna fix it. Yeah. So I'm proud of that record because again, what it does is show, you know, to all people, hey, if you're gonna raise your right hand, support and defend the Constitution, then we're gonna make sure you can do that to your full potential. And so I look forward to doing that one, that hypocritical thinking, really digging into the details and looking at, you know, our own city's kind of approach to certain challenges and figuring out, you know, how can we make sure we are thinking about certainly working moms, but other communities. One folk, one in particular, I know a lot of our working moms on this call are probably small business owners.

Yes.

Right. And so, you know, I just had a meeting with, uh, um, the leader of Centro and they're responsible for the Central Business District downtown. Yeah. And when you look at their metrics, it's really interesting, right? Because you, you and I both know, hey, if we got a goal, what do you need with a goal? You need a plan to do it. That's right.

Right. Yeah.

It helps.

It does. Hey, it does help. Now if you're serious, if you're serious about it.

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And so I was looking at the goals for the, for the plan and, uh, One of them was they want 75% of the storefront businesses down there to be, um, local small businesses. And I was like, oh, that's a, that's one, that's a great goal. Uh, two, where are we in relation to that?

Yeah.

Right.

And we're, well, we're like not even 40%. Um, but it, and I, I had, I thought about that because I had just had a roundtable with many small business owners. Um, and they were talking about, you know, their challenges with just find, just making rent, just a commercial space. Yes. Right. So there's a challenge with, hey, I don't have 6 months of of, of, of money just for my, you know, for a brick and mortar. How do you then go from being on the Riverwalk, right? Or being somewhere downtown? Yeah. Like how do we help people do that? Um, because again, these goals are important and it's, it's good that we have them, but I think we have to now have the plan to help people actually achieve those. Right. And build some more, more confidence in our commitment to those types of things. Otherwise they're just talking points.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I would argue just based on the demographic that we have here and like our members where most of them are business owners, I would say probably 98%. Yep.. And I know that there are city programs that are here for small business right here in San Antonio. No one knows about 'em.

Yeah.

They don't know that they exist. They don't know what they offer.

That access them.

And so I, yeah, I think the education part of it is super important.

Yeah.

Because people here could utilize some of that stuff and they just don't, they just don't know.

Yeah.

And you don't know what you don't know, you know?

100%. 100%. Um, and, and I think it's really important, you know, as mayor I would be very focused on, hey, how are we, it, you know, it's sometimes you run into this mentality of like, well, it's on the website. Well, yeah, one, a lot of things are. Yeah, exactly. It's like, one, no one knows about your website, and two, your website's hard to navigate, right?

Yes.

So how can we think about like, what are we ultimately trying to achieve? We're, to your point, we're trying to help people know that this resource is available to them. So like, that's the metric, right? That's the metric. Um, I will also say, just because, um, you know, there's childcare, there's, um, there's the helping small businesses. But, you know, one of the things I also had to deal with, and this is unfortunately kind of a stain throughout our country, though, is domestic violence.

Right?

Yes.

And this is unfortunately a huge issue in the military. You hear a lot about sexual assault, sexual harassment. But number 2 is domestic violence. And, you know, we don't like to think of that considering, you know, the, the, the, the role our military plays, how we revere them. But this is absolutely a challenge. And one of the things that I set up, again, because it's about supporting people, it's about rec seeing them right in all of their states and all of their circumstances and trying to address these challenges that are not making us be the best we can possibly be, whether that's the Department of the Air Force or whether that's San Antonio. And in particular, this is an issue in San Antonio. We've got the highest rate of domestic violence in the entire state of the, of the, of the— our rate is higher than Houston. Harris County, and it's higher than Dallas.

I had no idea.

I didn't know that either.

Well, I, you know, and, and, and you see domestic violence also in the context of frankly some of the other social determinants, right? We have our, our rate of poverty is higher.

Yes.

Right. Our, our rate of college education is lower. Mm-hmm. Right. So other, these other, these things, um, that, that lead to unfortunately people who are frankly unregulated, dysregulated, um, expressing of them ways that are, that are not healthy for themselves or for the community. So this is a, it's, it's a, you know, it's a strain, but, you know, also saw this at the, at the Department of the Air Force and wanted to, to address that, which was, I, we unfortunately saw one, many, many instances, but how we, how we addressed it, we could improve upon. So, you know, I got this, there was a great group at the time, and unfortunately it's been disbanded, is the Women's Initiative Team. And they said, you know, what would really help us and help, help the Department of the Air Force better understand this issue is if you co-located all of the services together, right? So, you know, put your legal together, put your, your, your victim, your survivor advocate together, put, put all of these entities together so that the survivor has to tell their story one time, not 7, 8 times. Right. Not, and not, not just, not just retraumatizing themselves that many times, but also having to go on to 8 different locations all over the base. Right. Like little things like that, that, yeah. That can be really difficult for a survivor. And then what we also ended up hearing was that a lot of the feedback, a lot of the feedback from the survivors, the services were not there to help them. The services were there to help the service member or protect the service member. And so, you know, this again, when we think, when we said we want to keep the best and brightest, these are the, these are the ugly things we also have to think about.

Sure. Right.

And so one of the things I pushed for, and I was like, well, look, I, because putting it all together helps to It also helps the, the, the providers better work together. Mm-hmm. Because then you, because if you're dealing today with domestic violence, we wanna know, hey, was that, did that start as grooming? Did that start as stalking? How did that start? So we can better address it so we can better kind of help our people, um, provide them information about it or training about it, but also help so people can identify it. Right. Right. So we can address this thing. So, um, I, um, uh, uh, uh, ordered a 6-month pilot, which was, hey, let's do this at a couple of bases and let's figure out, you know, um, what the data shows us., right? And what the data ended up— so we did this at 6 bases across the Department of the Air Force, some here stateside, some internationally. And we ended up showing better collection of data across the service.

Makes sense.

Across all of them. It does, right? Basic math.

Yeah.

But sometimes you just gotta tell people like, all right, we'll just do it a little bit. Yeah. And then we'll expand it. But when everybody knows the answer, right? So, and then what it also showed us was a significant decrease in the time from when somebody now had experienced it to when they reported it, which was, which is what you want.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. Like you want people to come forward and say, hey, this happened to me. And you want them to do it as soon as possible so you can address the other things. Is it financial abuse? Is, I mean, the number of the stories of, of people, um, of in particular women feeling like, hey, they could only go to the grocery store and then once they came back off base, they had to give 'em their ID card. Right.

Like, yeah.

We had, there was just real tough tough things like that. But I think as a, as a leader, to, to your point, you've gotta understand, is it, is it, is this thing doing the thing that we wanted it to do? Yeah. Because when we asked folks, um, the survivors versus the, like the kind of the senior, senior officers who were running these programs and running the bases, those folks said, oh, things are great. It's like a 70, 80%. This is wonderful. Like, right. These things, these think, we think these things are working well. And then you ask the survivors and they're like, No, they're not. So there was a 30% gap in how well the senior leaders thought things were working, and then the people that had to actually use this stuff, how well they thought it was working. So I was like, yeah, we gotta close that gap.

You gotta throw some more moms in there to make it more efficient.

Hey, that's right. That's right. But you also gotta have somebody know, hey, this isn't just extra.

Yeah.

This is as important as everything that you do.

Right?

Even, even just the small part of having the victim report this one time, I think that part alone is huge.

Oh yes.

I mean, yeah, the underreporting is, yes.

I mean, yeah. And, and it, because they know they're gonna have to go through that, you know, 15 times or whatever. That's right. And then on top of that, you know, the more you have to explain something, maybe your story changes a little bit and then maybe you fear that you may not be believed and, and that kind of thing. And so I feel like you're right. I've, I've watched so many documentaries and different things where it's like, you know, you hear these police officers talk or whatever. And they're like, well, you know, at first she said this, but then later she said this. So we weren't sure. It's like, she's already said it 10 times.

100%.

And she doesn't remember because, you know, it was a traumatic thing that was happening.

Your brain's trying to block it. Like, I don't wanna think about it.

It's self-preservation.

Yes.

You're trying to protect your—

So even just that facet of it, I think would be huge.

That's right. Exactly right. And, and, you know, the military is, um, is, is a, you know, it's an organization that is, is,, you were, you, let me just say the, their, the feedback from the, from the survivors was, again, this seems like a process more designed to protect the service member. Right. Than to help me. And so, um, at the end of the day though, we wanted to just, I just wanted to make sure people were, were safe and healthy. And we had, and that's right. And we had the data so that we could train these young airmen and these young guardians, hey, like, this is what this looks like. Oh, by the way, cuz some people come to us from all walks of life.

Absolutely.

Right. Some people know what agency is, some people don't.

Mm-hmm.

Some people know what is appropriate in a relationship. People don't. But at the end of the day, like you are now in the Department of the Air Force, you gotta, you, you gotta hold yourself to a certain level of accountability. And I say all that just because again, um, as mayor, I would not be scared to, you know, to think about again, the strength of our community in the context of how well we were, we were helping and serving the most vulnerable.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Especially in these times, especially with, um, you know, what's happening in Washington DC, what's happening in Austin. I think there's gonna be a lot of families that are, that are families that are gonna be financially insecure.

Sure.

And that traditionally is triggers domestic violence and other things in our community. Yes. That's right. Other things in our community that are very difficult to, to deal with. Um, so I think we've gotta look at all of these things, mm-hmm, things together, um, uh, to be sure that we're, we're as strong as we can be.

Yeah.

No, I love all of this. I mean, you're really taking, in my opinion, a very common sense approach, um, which you would think exists and is prevalent. And sometimes it isn't. And so I think that's great. And, and, um, you know, you are being a female and having these, these, uh, roles that you've had and, you know, hoping to be the mayor and that kind of thing. I wonder like what message do you hope that young women in our community are seeing by you doing these things?

Oh, that's very kind. Um, well look, I, anybody who asks me for advice, I tell 'em the same things. One, um, one, be kind, right? No one, don't be a jerk. No one wants to work with or for a jerk. So be kind. Um, two, work hard. Do not get outworked. Um, three, be so good. Be so good they cannot ignore you.

Right?

And then lastly, do the damn thing. Yeah.

Yep.

Right. Do the damn thing. Um, I hope that's what they, they take away. I hope that's what they see from, from my example. Um, because you know, we've all been in those rooms.

Yep.

Where we, we didn't say the thing. Um, and it was, uh, we didn't say the thing, the conversation was had, the decision was made, and frankly it would've been better if we were in the room. If, if we had said the thing we wanted to say.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right. So I've just, I've had those experiences and, and we need to be at, at these tables.

Right.

Um, oftentimes in many of these places I was the only woman. Um, and I, as far as I could tell, the first,, you know, the, the, the only out person.

Sure.

Um, when I served as the undersecretary, I was the first woman of color. Yeah. I was the first out lesbian. Um, and so many of these things I would think about, I remember, frankly, I remember being at the, uh, at the, at the Air Force Academy and we were talking about kind of their approach to recruiting. And, and I was, and I asked somebody, I was like, well, okay, well, you know, how would you talk to, um, you know, if you're talking to, to somebody, how would you, you know, how would you address if somebody brought up Vanessa Guillén?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And he said, he said, who's Vanessa Guillén?

Ugh.

Oh no.

He didn't.

And I was just like, excuse me? And again, being from San Antonio, being from Military City, USA, I mean, you can't drive on 35 going north, right? Passing Fort Sam without seeing that mural of Vanessa Guillén.

Yeah, sure.

Right? And so our community disproportionately sends people to serve and it's Black and brown kids.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And so I, I, you know, like I, I know my own family's service story. I also know though that our community disproportionately sends people to serve, and we've gotta do everything possible to make sure they can serve to their, to their full potential. And let me just say this because, because in the number one reason why somebody will serve in the military is if they themselves have served, right? Mm-hmm. And so, um, because of that, Bear County, um, sends a, a very high percentage of our population. And so if we don't get our things right, if we don't have enough smart, healthy kids, if we don't have, um, uh, then it is in fact a national security issue just because we, we contribute so much to the pipeline. Right.

Sure.

I had never thought of it that way.

Yeah. Well, because it's not just Military City USA today in terms of Lackland, but also I would argue Military City USA 2040, 2050. Yeah.

Right.

So one of the things I wanna do, um, is there is a, we have a great opportunity on the South Side. You know, we do a lot of manufacturing. People think of Toyota. Yeah. And they think of Navistar. And that's all great. Um, uh, we, San Antonio is the 21st largest manufacturing exporting region in the country. I don't think people recognize that. No. Now they know the Southside is growing. They know Toyota's down there, but like our ranking in that is very, very high. So for me, I would want, and one, 5% of our workforce is in manufacturing. Yeah. That's 3, 4 billion in payroll just right there. Right. So I wanna think about, okay, y'all like Chambers, South Texas Business Partnership, San Antonio, San Antonio Manufacturing Association. What's the plan? How do we go from 21 to 17 to 14 to 12? Right. Like how do we, how do we go, go up the chain? How do we invest in the infrastructure to allow for that? How do we invest in the healthcare down there? But also, what are the things that we are— like natural advantages for us that we can bring here?

Yeah.

One of the things I think that we could do, we could do space defense, space-related manufacturing, right? So all these things going up into space, you got to build them somewhere. Let's build them here in San Antonio and the commercial side of space. Is also growing very quickly. So manufacturing, repair, those are great opportunities. So I, you know, when I think about these things, I think of, again, where's the data, right? So let's look at the dollars and cents, and then we can focus on the infrastructure to support that. We can focus on the pipeline of talent, right? Developing our people to do that. Because, you know, again, we're, these are things that I think you could work on with anybody, right? I mean, people always ask me, well, what would you work on with Greg Abbott? Well, that this is a perfect example of something we will work on. He wants to bring Cyber Command San, uh, the Texas version of that here to San Antonio. Let's do that. Happy to do that. Um, but when we talk about these things, I'm also gonna let you know about the healthcare constraints.

Yes, sure.

Right. And we can only, San Antonio can only grow as fast if we don't have enough OB-GYNs. They don't wanna come here. They don't wanna train here. That constrains our growth. So we gotta talk, talk about these things at the same time.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm always a big proponent of healthcare for women, of course. And then, like you mentioned before, like the early childhood education, it's literally the future. These kids are the future.

Yes.

And so, I mean, people say that all the time and, you know, whatever, but it's just real life. It's true. You know? And so if you can get it right in the beginning and give these kids more opportunities, the potential's endless. The potential. I mean, yeah.

That's right.

That you, if you start with educated kids, a lot of these other issues that we have, I think you would find lessen.

But I also think well-balanced kids. I mean, the stress of when you have a family, um, family members that are sick, your, your parents are fighting, domestic violence, that kind of stuff, that just starts off horrible. That's right. Right. So if we can get it off right in the beginning, yeah, sure. You have so much more potential.

Yeah. I mean, to the extent also, I mean, people always wanna talk to me and they, and they should, cuz we have a challenge within our community is homelessness. Yeah. You see it downtown quite a bit. Um, and a lot of those folks deal with mental health challenges.

Sure.

Right. And so, um, or, or frankly learning disabilities., right? So, you know, how as early again as we can address those and diagnose those, the better going to be for our community. So this is, I think, so important to how we think about our community. There was one more thing I wanted to address. Oh, to your point about kind of workforce and investment, we, you all, I mean, we're all old enough to know you pay at the front or you pay at the end.

That's right.

You pay somewhere. You pay somewhere.

It's going to get you.

They catch you.

That's right. There's no use hiding it.

Right.

And so to your point, like I would argue if we had more Pre-K for SA, we wouldn't need so much ready to work program. Right.

Are you fair? No, you're right.

The ready to work program I think is a wonderful example of, hey, this is San Antonio's heart is in the right place.

Right.

We had some resources during COVID Now let's help upskill these people so we can put 'em on a path. Mm-hmm. And I think that is good in, in theory. I think in execution and with the data that we now have available to us, it shows that we've got some Areas to improve. Yeah. Sure. So, you know, cuz that's a multimillion dollar project. But after, when you look at the data, and this is all publicly available, less than 2,000 people have completed that program. 25% of those people after 12 months still do not have an approved job. We lose a lot of graduates to Houston because Houston pays more. Look, I'm not, we should not be paying people to go ready to work in Houston. Yeah. You gotta be ready to work in San Antonio.

The reason for the program is to keep 'em here and develop our community.

That's right.

We need those people. That's right.

And so this is the execution piece, right? Like what is that? Hey, what did that contract say about making sure that they stay here in San Antonio? We gotta revise that. But also one of the things, and because the program is off to a slow start, one of the things that they've, the city has done is given money to these multimillion dollar corporations to help them train their own people. Anyone that's worked in private knows that a corporation already sets aside a part of their own budget to train their own people, right? Of course, yeah. Because they wanna, they wanna do that. So I think it's really important when you are taking taxpayer dollars that you do what you said you would do. And if you need to modify it, then, you know, you talk to folks about that. But doing it just to juice the numbers, that's not what was sold to us. So I think we've got to look at that program. For me, the new metric should be, look, 90% of folks in an approved job within 90 days, because that tells me that you are training people to a need that exists in the community, not for like whatever. Right. And that's where we've got to drive it. And I think there is, again, a benefit to this idea of upskilling in our community. I was just on the South Side with the community healthcare professionals and they train your med techs and your pharm techs and like the admin billing people in a clinic. They're not the nurses, they're not the medical, the professional medical staff, but they're the folks that make that clinic run, right? Somebody, you're not gonna AI yourself out of drawing blood.

No.

So you gotta do those things. So it was wonderful to meet those students and I was there with the leader of that office and he said, look, the average student here 26-year-old Latina, she's got a couple kids, 40% of their student body spent some time at community college, but for whatever reason ran outta money or had the kid, had the kids and couldn't make it work. So they are here though to get to be on, put on a better path, right? Now, arguably when they finish that program, they're not gonna make much more than you would make at a food, a fast food place. But everybody knows that this is gonna put them on a different path.

Sure.

And so it's such an important program and it meets a real need in our community. Every year, the need for med techs in our community, 1,500. Between that campus and the Northside campus, they only do about 300 a year. So there's a, and there's some other partners that do it, but there's still a gap between what our community needs and what we're producing. So I think those are the types of things, to your point though, I mean, those are working moms.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, absolutely.

We've gotta, we, and they are going to fill a need in our community. So I want to take a, you know, a hard look at how we can better support those things. You know, the microlending, all the things that help our folks folks, um, reach their full potential, frankly.

Yeah. Well, because it just betters our community overall.

Yeah.

Like, the more we help invest within our, our own people. Yeah. And retain them here.

Yeah.

You know, that talent. Yeah. It makes a big difference.

And looking at that data is so important. I mean, I think that sometimes people start a program, and how often does this happen in business? You start something, right? And you're like, hey, this is going to be great, and exactly how we did it, this is going to work. If you didn't think it was going to work, you wouldn't start it, right? But it's important to keep keep looking and looking and looking to see, is this really working the way we thought it was going to work? And if it's not, it's not a failure. We just need to adjust. Yeah, that's right. You know, and change. And so I think looking at that stuff, all of these programs, is so important. Um, and it's not a failure if you have to adjust. We just—

it's—

you're just improving and optimizing over time.

100%. 100%. I think to your point about looking at the— looking at the data, looking at history is also very important. And I would be remiss if I didn't You know, share, we've got a big opportunity in our community right now, uh, with Project Marvel, right? Mm-hmm. This is the new, uh, the proposed downtown development, multi-billion dollars. Yes. Again, they wanna use public money to, to build some of this. I think, um, and I'm not saying I'm, I'm against it. I think it's important again that we look at the context and we look at the history because, um, you know, when, when Mayor Cisneros at the time, um, wanted us to pay for the Alamodome, the deal was, hey, build this and you know, this'll help us get an NFL team.

Mm-hmm.

The Brahmas are cool.

Yeah.

I mean, that ain't an NFL team, right? Yeah. Yeah. Not even, not even if I squint. Yeah. Right. Yeah. The AT&T Center, right? When, when Nelson Wolfe negotiated that deal, he said, and he said this on a podcast, he said the deal there was that the Spurs would give 20% of their profits every year in exchange for us publicly financing that. He said, ask me how much we got over 20 years. I don't wanna know.

Zero. Really?

Zero.

No.

That is wild.

I mean, you know, an accountant can make it look like you didn't make any money.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. So 20% a zero is, yeah, zero.

Still zero, right? Yeah.

Still zero. So my point is we've gotta look at these and, oh, by the way, you know, I went to that town hall that Tommy Calvert had, the commissioner, and the community came to, came there and really talked about, okay, well what does this now mean for our community, right? If the Spurs leave, if the Spurs leave here, because the east side development that they were promised, that everybody was, yeah, everybody was under the impression that would come, never came. Yeah. Right. It never came. And so, um, I think they're rightly pissed off is probably the right phrase. Um, cuz they were, uh, and are, uh, but also thinking about, okay, now with this deal right now with Project Marvel, can, can we need way more information to understand what, what is the deal? Who ultimately is gonna benefit? What is the price tag to our community?

Right?

I don't think we can, again, common sense-wise, I don't think we can keep putting in new stadiums, but then continue to complain about the state of things within the city.

Yes.

Like, I, I just don't think you can do that.

Can you say that louder for me?

Yeah.

Can you say that louder for the people in the back?

Other things before we— Yeah.

I mean, I just don't think you can do, like, that doesn't make any sense to me.

But, well, and, and this is the, and so this in, I just did an interview with the San Antonio Express-News and we had this, there was this, they had this kind of very black and white question. It's like, well, do you support, you know, city funding for for, um, a new Spurs arena or Project Marvel. Forget the exact wording. And I said, well, it depends. Like if I give you a dollar and you're gonna give me 100 back, that sounds like a great deal.

Cool.

Yeah. But if I'm giving you a dollar and you're giving me 75 cents back, that sounds like a terrible deal. Yeah. So like, let's look at the deal. Yeah. And, and, but I, I think also we've gotta just be approaching these things in a, a very strategic way. And to your point, with a very long time horizon and in light of the rest of the community's needs. Um, because, uh, this is a generational investment.

Mm-hmm.

Let's use it to invest in our generational challenges. Senator Spurs, you want to pay for all of our Pre-K for SA moving forward?

I mean, call it.

Yeah.

Call them Coyote Kids.

I don't care.

Right? Let's just meet the needs in our community to your point. And that's how I think we have to be thinking about these in light of what we have invested and what we are being asked to potentially invest again.

Do you think that everybody, you know, the common person will think about that? No. I think they think— No, I don't think most people pay attention to that.

They think, hey, cool new stadium.

This is neat.

I think that's what they think.

Cool new stadium. I, uh, let me see if I can save enough money to maybe go.

Yeah.

But it's kind of what our environment is right now. Let's spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. Well, hold on. You don't have enough money to do all that.

Yeah.

Let's, where's this money and how's it gonna benefit your family? Right. So our family is our community.

Yeah. I think it goes back to like educating people about this data because people are smart. Mm-hmm. And so I think if they know, but they think they're dumb.

Yeah.

I think if they know the things, if they understand the deal that's being presented to them, really. Um, they might say like, hey, do we need this? I don't know. And maybe it's coming from like a mom's perspective. I have 3 kids and I'm always trying to save and, you know, do these things.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like in my mind, if we have 2 of something, but we don't have this other thing, we probably don't need 3 of this thing.

Yeah.

I don't need like, you know, 3 laptops, right? We don't need another one, but we do need food on the table.

That's a mom talking right there. You know? Yeah.

We, we need that. And so I think if they were presented with the information, um, clearly and, and hopefully that's That's part of the plan. Um, you know, people can make smart decisions.

Yeah.

People are smart.

But I think nowadays, uh, with my children, so I have two teenagers and I'm, they think you just buy new all the time. No, use what you got.

Yeah.

Because we don't have money to buy new.

That's like a generational thing too.

Like, come on, dude. Like you can't buy everything. Like, so, so, but same with our community. We're in this, we can buy new all the time. We just buy new. But where is it coming from? Mm-hmm. And who are we hurting in the long, in the process?

Or if you do need new, then what can we do with these existing things that help some of these problems that we have? Yeah. Right. Like if you need something, if you need this new stadium, what can we do with the other ones that can help the community? You know?

Yeah. But let, let's make sure the math is math then.

Right.

Yes.

Right.

Math doesn't lie.

Math doesn't lie. Um, I think it's also important to, to, if we even just kind of back up a little bit.

Yeah.

To your point of like, How did we get here?

Right.

How did we get here? And I had an interview the other day with Ksat and, and he phrased the, the thing and he is like, well, you know, the city has come up with this plan. And I was like, no, no, the, the city, the city staff has come up with a plan. Yeah. That is, that's different.

Yeah.

Right. And so we have got to, I think, you know, understand how we got here. And, and for those that have been paying attention to that in particular, that whole process was really, you know, covered up with nondisclosure agreements.

Yeah.

Which is, you know, you had city staff, of frankly working with, uh, with some of the, some of the folks on the private side and, and kind of getting this all together out of, without public input, without public oversight. And I was very surprised that some of the city council members, um, were not even aware. We, they, we were reading about it at the same time. Yeah.

Right.

And which is really a failing, I think, of, um, of, uh, the understanding of who should have information and when they need it. I worked in the intelligence community. I know you can pro— you need to protect information, but at some point the people that need to read it and make decisions should have access to it. So first 100 days, right? I want to say, hey, show me that NDA policy.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Because we've got to make sure we've got a policy that helps us do city business but keeps the taxpayers' and the voters' trust, right? Because transparency leads to accountability. Accountability leads to trust. Because also when folks read this, it's like, hey, what else are y'all working on back there? Right?

What else?

Yeah.

If you want the community to continue to invest in their own community, they have to be able to trust it.

That's right. Yeah.

You know, if you want me to put money in and, and see the value in the things you want. I need to know about it. Yeah. And know what, what's going on.

Right. And especially because some of this money can be spent without a vote. Some of it needs a vote, some of it doesn't need a vote.

Yeah. Right.

So we really need much more transparency. Um, and that's why I have called for that. Um, I, I am surprised to be honest that, that none of the city council members who are currently running for, for mayor, like they're not up in arms about that. I would be, if something like that happened to me, I would like, I would be holding a press conference. Issue a press release, right? Because if you treat me like that, that means that's how you treat— that's how you think of the people I represent, right?

So like, allow your constituents to make an educated decision.

100%. And if you don't, if you're not getting the information, you better raise hell.

Yeah, right. Yeah, we should all be given that opportunity.

But I think we have all have so much going on, they think we're just gonna not worry about it.

I hope—

yeah, yeah, it's another stadium, we'll be all right, you know. But no, we're not. Yeah, we have a beautiful community. San Antonio is a beautiful place to be, and I, I work with people moving here quite a bit. So 20% every day people are coming here.

Yeah.

And we want to have a community that's thriving to just continue to grow our community. We are bringing talent. We want them to stay.

100%. 100%. We want them to stay. We don't want schools to close. Yeah, we want, we want opportunity throughout the community, not just in 3 parts of the community, 3 parts of the city, right? And that's why we have to think about these major investments in terms of, okay, now what are we getting? What's the good, what's the best deal we can get? Right? Because again, there might be a, a good deal. I'd love to see it. Sure. Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, um, would you like to share with our listeners where they can learn more about you? Yeah. And your policies and that kind of thing?

100%. Yeah. Well, thanks again. This has been a really great conversation.

Great conversation. Yeah.

I know the best. This has been amazing.

Oh, good.

It's been my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Sure.

Um, but yeah, Yeah, folks can go to GinaOrtizJones.com. Um, uh, please make sure you're registered to vote. You know, more people live in our city than in 10 states.

Well, and, and, and voting in a local, yeah. Um, oh, what's the word?

Election.

Yeah. Election. Yes. It's definitely, I feel more important than the others. This will affect your, your day-to-day family, your day-to-day more often than anything. Right.

So we've got some big things.

Get out there and vote.

Right. If you care about Pre-K for SA. If you care about, frankly, construction, that it seems to be taking forever. If you are concerned about, you know, more transparency about how your money is being spent, those are all things that are handled at the local level.

Right.

Yeah. And so I would be honored to bring my leadership, my management experience. I managed $173 billion budget at the Department of the Air Force, led 600,000 people. Right. And so I know what it takes to get things done, which is ultimately what what I think is needed at this point. But JeanOrtizJones.com is my website. There's also events that people can attend. We've got meet and greets. We've got, if we want to kind of phone bank, a text bank, they can also do that. And our office is 2104 McCullough. Stop on by, grab a shirt, help us knock on some doors. That'd be wonderful. But early voting is April 22nd through 29th, and the election's on May 3rd. I'd be honored to have your vote.

Go vote, people.

Yes, go vote. And we'll put all of that information in our show notes as well. And then just really quickly, I'll thank our listeners for tuning into this week's episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We will catch you guys next time.

See you guys next week.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We hope you love today's chat and found a little inspiration to take with you into your week. If you have a podcast topic a question or a question you'd love for us to cover, definitely send us an email at hello@workingmomsofsanantonio.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next time, see you in the community.