SAN ANTONIO — Five candidates from District 4 are seeking a victory during San Antonio’s upcoming general election on May 4.

  • 5 Candidates running for District 4
  • Early voting starts Aprill 22
  • General election is May 40

On the ballot is Johnny Arredondo, Adriana Rocha-Garcia, Joel Mendoza, Samantha Sanchez and Genevieve Trinidad. Current Councilman Rey Saldana is ineligible to run as he is serving his final term.

Arredondo is running his second campaign for councilman and said his community is facing rising taxes. If elected, this is one issue he plans to focus on.

“They are taxing us out of our homes. Our taxes have doubled and tripled, so those are the main focuses of the people of this district,” Arredondo said.

Another issue he would like to bring attention to is roads. He says infrastructure is lacking in District 4.

“We have streets that need repair. We have neighborhoods that don’t even have sidewalks that have been in existence for 30 to 40 years,” he said.

Former ethics committee chairwoman, Adriana Rocha-Garcia, is also in the running for the council seat. One issue she is vocal about is dockless scooters.

“We need to make sure all of our walkways are ADA accessible and some scooters are right in the middle of everything. I think we need to partner with the companies that are working on the scooter technology and make sure we are able to locate them,” she said.

If elected, Rocha-Garcia would like to work on the council’s transparency with the public.

“I make sure I listen to both sides of the issues and sometimes when somebody gives you research, it could be slanted,” she said. “ I will make sure I have research that justifies every person and represents every person of your community before any decisions are being made and that’s why I decided to run for City Council.”

Although candidate Joel Mendoza said he’s been classified as a progressive millennial with braces, he says his campaign is much more than that. He said he plans to work hard to break stigmas facing District 4.

“There is a stigma on the Southside that is attracted to crime or whatnot so I plan to make sure law enforcement is a visible presence,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza wants to rebuild the Southside by bringing in new hotels, restaurants and shopping centers.

“The way we do that is by allocating city funds. Instead of building any vanity projects or towers we go straight to revitalizing our communities,” he said. “If the infrastructure is good enough, it’ll make developers look at the area in a different light instead of developing downtown or north side and it’ll make us competitive with the rest of the city,”

Spectrum News made multiple attempts to reach out to candidates Samantha Sanchez and Genevieve Trinidad for this story but did not hear back.

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