As a hearing is scheduled for today to determine whether those three charter change petitions submitted by the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association will go onto the November ballot, Mayor Nirenberg says he is '100 percent certain' that if the proposals are on the ballot, they will be defeated, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Nirenberg told a forum sponsored by the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Rivard Report that the agencies that set municipal bond ratings, and which have handed San Antonio an enviable AAA bond rating over the past several years, have already indicated that the City will be downgraded if the proposals are approved.
"The consequences for the city means, less service, less infrastructure, for more of your money," he said.
"I am 100% confident, when they understand what this is about, they are inclined to vote no."
Nirenberg also blasted the 'petition driven chaos' which he says is affecting not just San Antonio, but other cities across the state. He criticized the SAPFFA for hiring a 'petition peddling' company out of the Austin suburb of Buda to gather signatures to place the items on the ballot.
He said mayors statewide will meet later this year to discuss whether companies should be allowed to collect 'cash for signatures' and alleged that the petition circulators for the SAPFFA referenda 'lied to the voters.'
"We have Voter ID laws here in the state of Texas, yet somebody can be asked and deceived into signing a petition to put a charter amendment, which is out constitution, here in the city, on the ballot, and they don't have to show any of that."
The SAPFFA has submitted adequate signatures to get three issues on the ballot in November.
One would significantly loosen the requirements to calling a referendum on essentially anything City Council approves, from removing Confederate monuments, to tax increases, on the ballot for public approval.
Another would significantly slash the salary of the City Manager, allowing the person who succeeds current Manager Sheryl Sculley to make no more than ten times the salary of the lowest paid full time city employee.
But a Political Action Committee which opposes the measures has sued, claiming that the SAPFFA illegally paid more than a half million dollars in union dues to the Buda firm to circulate the petitions.
It is against Texas law, which was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, to use mandatory union dues for overtly political purposes.
The lawsuit seeks to have the items removed from the November ballot, and also seeks an Attorney General's investigation into whether the SAPFFA broke the law.
The SAPFFA says the lawsuit is simply a tactic by the City to stall a vote on issues it doesn't like, and claims the lawsuit seeks to strip taxpayers of their voice in deciding City business.