San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Bexar County funds gun safety campaign
After weeks of lobbying the Bexar County Commissioners Court to fund them instead of an advertising campaign, several nonprofits got some good news: a guarantee that they’d receive a portion of the nearly $1 million gun safety initiative.
Still, half of the money will go to “paid media,” like Facebook or YouTube ads or door hangers targeted at gun owners, particularly those with children in their homes.
The court voted 3-2 to award Texas Creative a $900,000 contract to provide countywide outreach and education on responsible gun ownership and safety, with County Commissioners Grant Moody and Tommy Calvert voting against it last week.
Though the gun safety initiative wasn’t on the agenda for the Jan. 23 meeting, nearly 20 residents urged the court to take a different approach. Many of them — like Bennie Price, founder and CEO of Big Mama’s Safe House — returned in February and again last week to make the same request.
“If Bexar County wants to reduce gun violence it should work with members of the community who understand community violence,” Price said in the January meeting. He added, “An advertising campaign cannot penetrate the culture of gun violence in our community.”
The contract specified $270,000 for the nonprofits as mini-grants, while $450,000 will be used on paid media.
That amount “is basically pennies,” Price said after the vote. He hopes to receive at minimum $100,000 for his faith-based organization, which focuses on gang prevention and intervention for youth.
Price was encouraged by Calvert, County Judge Peter Sakai and County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez, who voiced support for boosting the money available for nonprofits by reallocating unused federal coronavirus relief dollars.
“There’s a lot of need out there,” Rodriguez said prior to the vote. “$270,000 does not go a long way.”
A new approach
Calvert took credit for packing the court in January in an effort to get the county to take a different approach from the one he signed off on two years earlier.
“In the January 23 Commissioners Court meeting, Commissioner Calvert actively sought and embraced feedback from leaders of various community nonprofits on the pressing issue of gun violence prevention,” reads a Jan. 26 news release from his office.
Calvert, who represents the East Side’s Precinct 4, did not make himself available for an interview.
At last week’s meeting, he unsuccessfully sought to get his colleagues to put $900,000 in federal coronavirus relief funds toward local groups working to prevent gun violence.
In 2022, the five-member court voted unanimously to devote $1.1 million in coronavirus relief funds to promote safe gun storage and responsible gun ownership. Of that amount, $100,000 went to purchasing 1,000 gun locks and 3,300 gun cases, which the county has distributed at community events.
The remaining money was to “support a county-wide outreach and education effort on safe and responsible gun ownership and safe storage,” according to the June 7, 2022, agenda. That’s included $55,000 in advertising prior to the Texas Creative contract. The rest of the funds will be used to buy more gun locks and cases.
Sakai and Moody were not on the court at that time.
Moody voted against the Texas Creative contract because he took issue with the fact that the court would not vote on which community organizations would receive grants. Texas Creative CEO Ashley Landers said the communications firm would make that determination in conjunction with Bexar County public information officer Monica Ramos, with input from the commissioners and judge.
Texas Creative will administer the grants rather than the county because some nonprofits may not have qualified for federal funding, which comes with stringent application and reporting requirements.
“A lot of these nonprofits don’t necessarily have all of the required and desired paperwork to be able to submit for grants successfully,” Ramos said.
Sakai pushed back against some of Calvert’s criticisms over the use of paid media to educate residents on how to store their guns safely.
“Although we have good people out there doing all the great work, nobody’s got — again, no pun intended, and please excuse the pun — we have no silver bullet,” Sakai said. “And so we need to keep working hard to find the solutions based on evidence.”
Texas Creative will use focus groups and data from University Health and national research groups to inform its paid media campaign and grant program.
“There are many misperceptions around gun violence and gun deaths in our community,” Landers told the court. She pointed to state data showing that 61% of gun deaths were ruled suicides, while 35% were homicides.
“What this tells us is that responsible gun ownership and safety messaging is critical for everyone that might have access or come into contact with a gun,” she said.
Leaked proposals
Janie Gonzalez, the owner of Webhead (who also chairs CPS Energy’s board of trustees), was one of five businesses bidding for the contract. She addressed the court last week to lament the divisive nature of the public chatter surrounding the campaign.
“I want to emphasize the potential for collaboration with nonprofits and companies like Webhead,” she said. “It should not be a matter of choosing one over the other, but recognizing that our combined efforts can lead to a more comprehensive solution.”
She also expressed disappointment over “the leak of respondents’ proposals,” which she said “highlights a larger issue of trust and integrity in the process.”
Gonzalez told the San Antonio Express-News that a friend alerted her that documents she submitted in response to the county’s request for proposals were shared during what Gonzalez described as a “grassroots meeting” that included various nonprofits. The proposals include proprietary information such as pricing and strategy.
Ramos said staff from the county Purchasing and Procurement Department had access to the proposals, as did members of the evaluation committee, the four county commissioners and the county judge.
“I don’t know how these things were leaked. I don’t know how they got out,” Ramos said in an interview. “I know that various organizations mentioned seeing those documents, as well as various media organizations.”
Sakai told the Express-News that Tuesday was the first time he heard about the leaked proposals. He pledged “to make sure that we are following the rules and regulations” surrounding the request for proposal process.