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With Big Projects Still To Be Completed, Mayor Castro Files For Third Term

Ryan Loyd
/
Texas Public Radio

With a signature, an oath and a check for $100, Mayor Julián Castro officially became a candidate for mayor.

At his Feb. 2 rally, he told supporters that he recognized he’s the first San Antonio mayor to have the opportunity to run for a third term. Expanded term limits in 2009 now allows Castro and each of the council members to run for four two-year terms.

"As Mayor I've brought a strong vision to what I want us to accomplish,” he said during the rally. "I want San Antonio to be the leading brainpower city that is the liveliest city in the United States. And over the last four years, with your support, I've had the honor of working to create that vision."

Castro won the support of voters by almost 83 percent of the vote the last time he ran for mayor. If he’s elected again, he says he’d like to begin taking a hard look at matching the city’s workforce to employers.

"One of the things I'm going to be tackling is this issue of preparing our workforce better; linking up education with the needs of our employers so that no employer ever has to wonder whether they can find the talent, the skills that they need in the workforce here in San Antonio," he said Tuesday after filing for office.

Castro’s programs haven’t always been popular. His Pre-K 4 SA measure, which will cap the city’s sales tax at 8.25 percent, was opposed by those who didn’t like how much money the eight year program would cost and lack of specifics put forth by Castro's team.

Still, it narrowly passed and will give the city a program Castro previously said he rested his tenure as mayor on.

"That's how people are going to reach their dreams in the 21st Century, if they're well educated,” he said Tuesday.

Although President Barack Obama didn’t mention San Antonio, or Castro, by name during Tuesday’s State of the Union address, he did speak of early education initiatives, and called on Congress to adopt a bill that would give four year olds everywhere the chance for a quality pre-K program.

Castro said he hoped his pre-K program will be a model the rest of the nation can follow, and it seems that President Obama has been listening.

Ryan Loyd was Texas Public Radio's city beat and political reporter. He left the organization in December, 2014.