Walter McAllister, who served as San Antonio mayor until 1971, faced a censure vote over criticism stemming from a national TV interview.
SAN ANTONIO — Whether or not it ends up passing, Friday’s City Council scheduled vote to potentially censure Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones will represent a remarkably rare moment in San Antonio history. Not since July 1970 has a sitting mayor of the Alamo City faced such a reprimand from council colleagues.
While the most immediate context of the Friday vote is a confrontation between Jones and a fellow council member that occurred behind closed doors, the contention 56 years centered on nationally televised remarks by then-Mayor Walter W. McAllister, who was in the final months of a 10-year decade at the helm.
What happened in 1970?
According to the city’s written record, City Council met on July 9, 1970, two days after an NBC News interview featuring McAllister which caused controversy in the city.
During a portion of the meeting officially noted in city materials as “Discussion of mayor’s remarks on television concerning Mexican-Americans,” McAllister read a lengthy prepared statement in which he threw blame at then-NBC News reporter Jack Perkins for what he called a “distorted commentary.” At issue was a segment of the TV news piece in which McAllister said it was made to appear as if he was referencing Mexican-American residents just before discussing Communism.
“Mr. Perkins employed a technique of using my voice in conversation in one particular circumstance and playing it behind film sequences of west-side San Antonio scenes—a technique deliberately calculated to distort my utterances,” McAllister said to council colleagues and a packed room, according to a record of the meeting. “I have reference to the view of several citizens of Mexican extraction preceding my statement about communists. I make no retraction in my statements, but at no time did I state or even intimate that any of our citizens of Mexican extraction are communists.”
McAllister went on to express surprise and disappointment at the way the piece was edited, specifically in how it stitched “together one section of a conversation with entirely unrelated pictures to have so distorted an otherwise unassociated discussion.”
“If the inference the picture produced has disturbed any of my American friends of Mexican extraction, I am very sorry,” he went on to say, according to the city’s record. “I might add that, as a matter of fact, I do not know the name of a single admitted communist of Mexican extraction.”
However, Pete Torres Jr., a council member serving what at the time was Place 9, took issue with another angle of McAllister’s evident commentary in the NBC News piece. According to records of the meeting, Torres criticized apparent comments made by McAllister referencing police enforcement when it comes to “people who are taking a more active part in political affairs.”
Specifically, Torres demanded an apology over McAllister allegedly saying it was “too bad the police do not clobber them over the head more often.”
“We want community involvement,” Torres said to the then-mayor, saying his apology was less on the part of himself and instead on behalf of Perkins’ reporting. “We want community participation, but I don’t think that we ought to breathe a hostility that arises, Mr. Mayor, when you go to divide a community.”
Pressed by another council member on whether McAllister was directly apologetic, the mayor said: “The statements as I said, is as I intend to make it.” He later doubled down by again saying he was misrepresented in the news piece.
“I am not making any apology as such because statements that I made were taken out of context,” he said.
Throughout the conversation were intermittent “outbursts” from those in the council chambers, including some audience members carrying signs, according to the city’s record of the meeting. At one point when a council member said he was “getting mighty tired” of the interruptions, one audience member responded: “Are you God?”
Torres eventually moved to censure Mayor McAllister, and was seconded by Place 6 Councilmember D. Ford Nielsen.
But the motion failed, 2-4, when they were the only “Yes” votes; four other council members rejected the measure, while McAllister and Felix Trevino, the council representative for Place 7, abstained.
McAllister later left after hearing from five public speakers who signed up to make their voice head. Four of them, including a representative of the Federation for the Advancement of the Mexican-American, criticized him for the piece.
Another vote looming
Nearly six decades later, City Council will convene again to potentially censure the mayor as tensions from Jones’ first term come to a head. Council members earlier this week decided to move forward with considering a resolution that says her conduct is “not acceptable for an elected official and should not be tolerated.”
City Council met for a lengthy Monday meeting – most of it unfolding behind closed doors – to discuss the findings of an outside investigation into Jones’ conduct after Sukh Kaur, the District 1 representative on council, submitted a Code of Conduct complaint against the mayor. An ensuing memo submitted by five members of City Council cited “repeated instances of unprofessional conduct” and called for a possible censure vote pending the outcome of that probe.
The complaint itself, send by Kaur to City Manager Erik Walsh and City Attorney Andy Segovia on Feb. 9, is brief and describes in broad terms what happened inside a City Council break room the morning of Feb. 5.
Kaur claims Jones “used profanity, abusive language, and intimidating behavior directed at me and in close proximity to others in the room,” saying Walsh, Assistant City Manager John Peterek and Pat Wallace, Jones’ deputy chief of staff, were also present.
The mayor has since publicly apologized and said she had done so privately to Kaur.
“As an Air Force veteran, Iraq War veteran, I admit that I have a different set of experiences that that allow me to view things a little bit differently than some of my colleagues,” Jones said on Tuesday. “And that morning, we were discussing public safety, and I should not have raised my voice and I should not have used profanity.”
A censure is a symbolic vote of repimand; it wouldn’t remove Jones from office.
But it’s still a rare move for City Council to take. Only three times since 2000 has a sitting council member faced censure by their colleagues. Two were related to DWI cases involving council members; the other was for an outburst in council chambers.
Jones won elected office for the first time last summer, having previously served as Air Force under secretary when she was appointed by then-President Joe Biden. Her first eight months as mayor have been frequently contentious, largely when it comes to votes on high-profile items, such as Project Marvel. Last summer also saw Jones sparring with members of council over changes she
“We have to be able to interact with each other in a professional manner,” District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte said Thursday. “So our hope is that, after tomorrow, we can all get on the same page and do that.”
San Antonio City Council adopted its existing code of conduct in early 2024, when they voted to add it to the City Charter. It emphasizes creating a “safe and productive work environment” and mandates that council members should treat each other with respect, and refrain from “derogatory or harassing remarks or images” as well as personal attacks, verbal abuse or language implying harm.