Ryan Loyd

School safety may be at the heart of nearly every project District 1 Councilman Diego Bernal advocates, but he said the rules for how the city spends money delay improvement projects.

Now he’s on a mission to change that.

"We can all agree that pedestrian safety around schools is a priority. No one's going to argue with that," he said.

As a subcommittee of the Pre-K 4 SA board prepares to receive recommendations from city staffers on how kids will enroll for the program, the board has been busy adjusting the job descriptions of some key positions.

Deputy City Manager Peter Zanoni said the board wanted to include as many qualified candidates as possible, without ruling anyone out because they didn’t have the right credentials.

Last year San Antonio Police reported that dozens of people were struck and killed crossing busy roadways. As a result, Police Chief William McManus instituted stricter jaywalking policies.

However, people continued illegally crossing the street, and one area where it kept happening was on Fredericksburg Road, which sees more than 16,000 cars each day.

Mayor Julián Castro's movement to re-energize downtown is at the heart of dozens of active projects, and one of the goals of the mayor's transformation programs, SA2020, is to attract people to the city core by building 7,500 apartment units.

One of Castro's confidants is Henry Cisneros, who leads CityView, a company that works with builders to create homes priced within the range of average families.

Arson investigators are looking into a two-alarm fire that engulfed a vacant building downtown last night. More than 100 firefighters worked to put out the flames near a hotel at Third and Broadway.

Firefighters battled stubborn flames for hours with gallons of water flowing onto the street below making it look more like the Riverwalk.

"We arrived to find heavy smoke coming from the second floor," said District Fire Chief Keith Crusius, who said people at the nearby Travelers Hotel self-evacuated.

The city of San Antonio commissioned an imaging study to see how people across the country – especially business leaders – perceive the Alamo City.

Of 102 respondents, it found that 38 percent of people in big industries like healthcare, information technology (IT) and aerospace are unfamiliar with the infrastructure, business climate, and governance offered by San Antonio.

The report said a lack of familiarity puts San Antonio at a disadvantage to key competitors, cities like San Diego, where business executives are more aware of what they can expect.

Voters will head to the polls on  Saturday, May 11, and the race for the District 3 seat is getting tense. The seat's current occupant, Leticia Ozuna, did not win the seat by election. She was appointed in January 2012 to fulfill Jennifer Ramos' term.

Ramos left the city council to focus on a campaign for Bexar County Commissioner Precinct 1 a race that she ultimately lost.

Known for his voice of reason and scrutiny of topics that come across the dais on city council days, District 8 Councilman Reed Williams will not be seeking his third term. This has thrown the door wide open to a list of people ready to fill the seat.

Rolando Briones, an engineer, Ron Nirenberg, associate general manager of Trinity’s jazz station KRTU, and Michael Kueber, a retired attorney, are all ready to be the next city councilman.

Standing on a stage inside Ballroom A of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center downtown, San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro began his annual State of the City address by joking that people should pick up a copy of Vogue.

The mayor and his brother, Congressman Joaquín Castro, are featured in the March edition of the trendy fashion magazine.

Before long Castro was into a list of items he and the city council have taken up over the last year: