Building Consensus

As a San Antonio city councilman, Manny Pelaez ’97 is in the business of making decisions.

But for Pelaez—the second straight Trinity University graduate to represent District 8 on the council after Ron Nirenberg ’99 left that spot for the mayor’s office in June 2017—this decision-making process is never a solo effort.

“Ron and I both like to gather consensus before making decisions,” Pelaez says. “At the end of the day, you get more buy-in that way because each decision ends up as a group decision.”

Pelaez credits this style of leadership to his time at Trinity, where an often-overlooked classroom routine has ended up paying big dividends for his career.

“Trinity puts a big emphasis on group projects, and I’d always ask myself, ‘gosh, why are we doing this?’” Pelaez groans, evoking an 18-year-old version of himself. “But now I realize how important an exercise that was—you learn to surround yourself with smart people who can help you solve problems.”

After majoring in communication and earning his J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law, Pelaez held positions as managing counsel for Toyota Motor Manufacturing, chairman of Brooks City Base Board, trustee for VIA Metropolitan Transit Authority, and other leadership positions, along with volunteer posts such as general counsel for the Bexar County Battered Women and Children’s Shelter.

This mix of positions, Pelaez notes, has given him a firsthand look at major issues like economic development, as well as the personal side of everyday problems faced by citizens in District 8 and across the city. But serving as a city councilman, he’s now asked to do more than understand these challenges: he’s tasked with solving them.

“It’s like trying to drink the ocean, because there’s just so much we have to do,” Pelaez says. “So, (you) have to accept that first, and then you try to drink the ocean, one glass at a time.”

These challenges, according to Pelaez, include day-to-day issues related to constituent services (think potholes, signage, and code enforcement, among other obstacles) that take up a lot of time, along with larger-picture problems. In District 8, Pelaez points to congested traffic that is “bringing a lot of anxiety and pain to that side of town.”

So, Pelaez is focusing on two categories of answers: “resilience” and “smart city innovation.”

Resilience refers to planning for acute shocks—like a Hurricane Harvey or a terrorist attack—and being able to withstand and recover from them quickly, along with day-to-day chronic stressors that inhibit a city’s ability to thrive, like traffic, crime, obesity, and rising global temperatures.

“We’re asking city officials to look at delivering services through this lense of ‘resiliency;’ we’re examining our ability to evacuate elderly and homeless in the event of a horrible storm, all the way to evacuating animals from the zoo and art from the art museum in case a trillion gallons of water hit us. Or, in an active shooter situation, what role do hospitals and pharmacies and schools and bus systems and the private industry have in retaining this resiliency, too?”

Smart city innovation, in turn, deals with creating a connected, intelligent city where all systems interact with each other, using data in a way that informs decision-making.

“This is more of the wonky stuff,” Pelaez says, “But we still have to manage stray dogs and potholes, too.”

Pelaez also sees economic development as a defining issue for the future of the city.

“Tech skills are going to be required if we are going to keep thriving as a city,” Pelaez notes. “If we aren’t thinking about how to attract those jobs, we’re already being left behind.”

Pelaez has already seen big corporations make moves within his district, as streaming powerhouse Hulu and cyber security firm Ernst & Young announced plans to expand operations within the area in 2017.

Companies like these, Pelaez continues, aren’t just coming to San Antonio because of infrastructure, but also because of the “readiness” of its educated workforce and the amenities that universities like Trinity offer the city.

“Trinity pumps out graduates that are better prepared—that rigor has stood the test of time,” Pelaez says. “When I got to my first big job at a company like Toyota Motor Manufacturing, I realized that the Trinity experience prepared me to be able to tackle a heavy workload that a lot of other folks weren’t ready to tackle.”

Beyond tapping this workforce, companies are also interested in retaining workers, Pelaez explains.

“A company like Hulu isn’t just looking for cheap office space and cheap taxes and cheap electricity,” he says. “They want to make sure that with the hundreds of jobs they do create, that those workers are going to be living in a vibrant city … that their workforce is going to be happy on the weekends.”

Trinity fits into this part of the equation, Pelaez notes.

“Local universities are also a vital component to a vibrant quality of life,” he says. “People I meet are always saying, ‘you gotta go see a Trinity soccer game, and their arts scene and their speaker offerings.’ These things are as important to companies moving here as the quality of Trinity’s graduates.”

While Trinity serves as a major connecting point for Pelaez’s and Nirenberg’s consensus-driven leadership styles, the present District 8 councilman wants to make one thing clear about what separates the two politicians:

“Ron can bench press more than I can,” Pelaez laughs. “But I’m a better dancer.”