Five vie for two seats on San Antonio River Authority board

Deb Bolner-Prost won nearly 27 percent of the vote to be elected to the SARA board. Deb Bolner-Prost won nearly 27 percent of the vote to be elected to the SARA board. Photo: Deb Bolner-Prost / Photo: Deb Bolner-Prost / Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Five vie for two seats on San Antonio River Authority board 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Bexar County voters can choose among two incumbents and three challengers for two open seats on the board of the San Antonio River Authority.

Only two positions representing Bexar County at large on the authority’s 12-member board are open for the Nov. 7 election, with early voting beginning Monday.

SARA manages the San Antonio River, maintains flood control dams and operates wastewater treatment plants in downstream counties. Its territory covers Bexar, Wilson, Karnes and Goliad counties.

SARA’s nearly $242 million budget is funded through a property tax of 1.73 cents per $100 of assessed value, with cap of 2 cents set by the Texas Legislature.

Board secretary Hector R. Morales, who has served since 2005, is running for reelection. So is Lynn Murphy, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2016 after the death of former board member Sally Buchanan.

Newcomers are Deb Bolner-Prost, Skye Curd and Joseph F. Nazaroff.

The election comes during a period of success for SARA, whose staff applied for and recently won the Thiess International Riverprize, often called the Nobel Prize of rivers. The San Antonio River beat out rival rivers in Alaska, the Philippines and the UK.

Instrumental in that win were the Mission Reach and Museum Reach projects, which combined ecological restoration with public art, walking and biking trails and, on the Mission Reach, kayak chutes to enhance the river for paddlers.

SARA’s current major projects include the San Pedro Creek Improvements Project and restorations of Alazán, Martínez and Apache creeks on the city’s West Side. These projects also involve county and city resources.

Morales, 72, worked in the Civil Service for 26 years and was in the Texas Air National Guard for 29. He’s also served in leadership roles at his local VFW post.

In a phone interview, he referenced his 12 years of experience on the board and said he wants to continue SARA’s successful stewardship of the river while maintaining fiscal responsibility. He said he’s interested in keeping the tax rate stable or even lowering it.

In supporting work on the Museum and Mission reaches and now San Pedro Creek, Morales said he wants to make sure that the projects benefit San Antonio residents as well as tourists.

“We can promote a lot of economic benefit and show people around the country that we do exist and we do have a place here,” he said.

Curd, 37, said she wants to bring a commitment to transparency and public involvement to the office. She described her relative youth as an asset in helping SARA find new ways to use social media and other tools to reach people who might not ordinarily think of the river.

Curd serves on the Westside Creeks Restoration Oversight Committee, where she had an advisory role on a recent Elmendorf Lake restoration project. There she saw first-hand the connections between environmental health, public safety and economic growth, she said.

Some of SARA’s top environmental priorities, Curd said, should be educating businesses and residents to dispose of waste properly and encouraging the greater use of low-impact design features that allow more stormwater to infiltrate the ground instead of carrying pollutants to the river.

Bolner-Prost, 64, served on the Olmos Park City Council from 2011 to 2015 and is now on the board of the San Antonio River Foundation, a nonprofit that works with SARA by raising money for projects, including Confluence Park where the river and San Pedro Creek converge on the South Side.

She said her love for the river goes back generations, with her mother’s side tracing its lineage to the first Canary Islander families who settled San Antonio. She wants to ensure the San Antonio River watershed has adequate flooding protection and continue SARA’s efforts to promote green design that lets more water infiltrate the soil.

Informing Bolner-Prost’s approach is her experience in marketing, advertising and statistics. Her main business is Prost Marketing Inc., whose clients have included the city of San Antonio and University Health System. She said she would apply this experience to SARA’s budget.

“I’m a strategic planner,” she said. “To me, how you set your revenues is you have to put down what your strategic goals are and what that costs.”

Nazaroff, 66, retired last November after running a union commercial printing and supply store called Ideas Unlimited. He serves on the board of the Leon Valley Economic Development Corp.

Nazaroff describes himself as a “fiscal conservative” in favor of balanced growth. He said Bexar County residents have a “moral imperative” to protect local waterways from illegal dumping and inadequate stormwater structures.

“When I walk the rivers along the River Walk area and the Mission Reach, it’s a time for me to enjoy with my friends and family,” he said. “It’s a time to rejuvenate the emotional and spiritual side of me.”

Murphy is an attorney whose SARA biography describes her as the CEO of the medical billing firm Integrity Ancillary Management. She did not return multiple emails and calls to her office requesting an interview.

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