City Council decides against bidding for GOP national convention in 2020

Weak-kneed Ron. A city council of left-wing activists destroying the economy of #SanAntonio. @Ron_Nirenberg and city council just made the business community their enemy. Have fun with that. Weak-kneed Ron. A city council of left-wing activists destroying the economy of #SanAntonio. @Ron_Nirenberg and city council just made the business community their enemy. Have fun with that. Photo: Twitter Photo: Twitter Image 1 of / 179 Caption Close City Council decides against bidding for GOP national convention in 2020 1 / 179 Back to Gallery

The city of San Antonio will not submit a bid to host the 2020 Republican National Convention, a decision announced after council members met Thursday in closed session to discuss the matter.

The cost of pursuing the event — an international spectacle that could draw 40,000 visitors, including 15,000 reporters — outweighs the potential economic impact that could be $200 million, Mayor Ron Nirenberg and most council members agreed.

The host city, through a local committee that would be composed of business leaders, would be expected to raise about $70 million, including about $6 million from public coffers.

“As a whole, the City Council did not feel it was worth it to move forward,” Nirenberg said shortly after concluding the closed-session meeting with his colleagues.

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He said there was absolutely no discussion about politics, and the discussion centered on economic issues.

Council members Greg Brockhouse and Clayton Perry chided the decision, saying they believe the city is missing a golden opportunity to put San Antonio in the international spotlight and bring jobs and millions of dollars of spending to the city.

Though there was no actual vote in the council’s executive session, the mayor said the consensus in the room was not to proceed with a bid for the multi-day convention scheduled for August of 2020. The decision, he said, extends to the Democratic National Convention.

San Antonio has not bid on a national political convention in two decades, Nirenberg said.

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The RNC issue has come to the forefront because party leaders specifically asked for a bid from San Antonio, and the GOP representative in charge of site selection visited San Antonio in March to personally ask for leaders here to consider submitting a bid.

At a late-March lunch, when Ron Kaufman, the chairman of the site-selection committee, dined with several local leaders, including the mayor, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and former Mayor Phil Hardberger, it was apparently made clear there wasn’t much interest in pursuing the convention. Those who attended the lunch say they thought the matter was closed. The following day, Nirenberg received a call informing him that the RNC was no longer interested in San Antonio as a potential location.

Then, last week, Brad Parscale — President Donald Trump’s current campaign manager and former San Antonian — began making phone calls urging the city to bid on the convention and ultimately took to Twitter to trash Nirenberg for not immediately submitting one.

Nirenberg informed council members that there appeared to be renewed interest in San Antonio and convened Thursday’s executive session on the matter.

Meanwhile, local business leaders have circulated a couple letters, insisting that there’s a strong desire to bring the convention to San Antonio — and solicit the requisite funds for hosting the event.

One letter claims that the RNC has relieved the city of a requirement to put up public dollars toward the cost of the convention.

“Historically — and in most cases with political conventions — the city and county would each allocate $2 to $3 million towards the overall cost of the convention,” according to a letter from B.J. “Red” McCombs, John Montford, Dennis Nixon and Eddie Aldrete. “However, the RNC has informed San Antonio that as long as there is a genuine commitment of a hand-in-hand partnership to ensure a successful convention, the city’s financial commitment can be made up with funds that are raised privately.”

City officials say they’ve not heard from the RNC, but one noted that the RNC’s request for proposals indicates that the host city may be on the hook for the convention’s total cost if the host committee doesn’t wrangle enough funding.

From the RFP: “The City’s and/or Host Committee’s financial obligations must be assured through a guaranty agreement providing for the guaranty of the City’s and/or Host Committee’s financial obligations. The guaranty must be supported by a combination of an acceptable Letter of Credit from a federally insured banking institution and an earnest money deposit. The guaranty agreement must cover all financial obligations resulting from the 2020 Convention, and the Letter of Credit and earnest money deposit must be available to be drawn upon automatically to make up any deficit in funds received (not merely committed) by the applicable deadline set forth in the budget timetable and until all such financial obligations are satisfied.”

City Council members have been quiet on the issue leading into Thursday’s executive session, though Brockhouse blasted the decision to do it behind closed doors.

In a press release this week, he said the discussion should be held in a public session, an idea supported by the Bexar County Republican Party.

“Mayor Nirenberg has called for a Closed Meeting (Executive Session) to discuss proceeding with a potential bid submission for the 2020 Republican National Convention (RNC). I asked the City Attorney to review this request to ensure compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act. Generally speaking, City Council cannot and should not make decisions or enact policy in Executive Session,” he said in the release. “While I wait for the legal guidance, it is my belief the decision to bid should be held in an Open Meeting. If we are truly striving to be a welcoming and inclusive City, deciding whether or not to deny an organization based on their political beliefs is a dangerous precedent that shouldn’t be done behind closed doors. The public deserves total transparency and to know where elected officials stand on this critical decision.”

Nirenberg has said that the discussion would be one about the economics of the convention, not its politics. He has also said he would resist spending public funds on the DNC. That sentiment has been echoed by former councilman and current Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff, a Republican. Wolff has said that while he thinks San Antonio should pursue the convention, neither the city nor the county should spend any tax dollars on incentives.

Taxpayers here, Wolff has said, are politically diverse, and their dollars shouldn’t be spent to support either political party.