City Council will decide on Friday whether to censure Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones following weeks of tension.
SAN ANTONIO — All eyes are on City Hall as San Antonio council members prepare to decide whether to censure Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones.
The vote follows weeks of tension and a closed-door discussion Monday.
That meeting gets underway at 10 a.m. Friday and while council talked about the issue in executive session on Monday, it’s still unclear whether there are enough votes to move the censure forward.
It started when five City Council members submitted a memo calling for a possible censure vote against the mayor.
The claims go back as far as last summer but the most recent, according to the memo, points to a February 5 incident involving District 1 Councilmember Sukh Kaur. Specifically, whether downtown’s Bonham Exchange could stay open despite missing a deadline to install required fire sprinklers.
An investigation into the mayor’s conduct was done, though the results of that investigation were not released or spoken about publicly.
The mayor apologized earlier this week for that interaction with Councilwoman Kaur.
“I should not have raised my voice and I should not have used profanity. And for that, I apologize,” said Ortiz Jones.
If a censure were to happen, it’s more of a formal and symbolic reprimand and it wouldn’t remove Jones from office.
It could, however, impact City Council dynamics moving forward. Part of the resolution also calls for leadership training for the mayor.
Right before that meeting, which starts at 10 a.m., the mayor is doing a press conference announcing a new voting commission to increase voter participation in San Antonio.