"Now Is the Time, Compadres"

By Russ Hoyle

San Antonio elects the first big-city Mexican-American mayor

In the small, dusty courtyard outside St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in the heart of San Antonio's sprawling West Side barrio, shirtsleeved Mayoral Candidate Henry Cisneros joked with small children and chatted with old people in Spanish. Polls showed that his lead was diminishing rapidly over his nearest rival, John Steen, a wealthy insurance executive from the city's heavily Anglo North Side. At stake: the opportunity to make Cisneros, despite a tantalizingly close race, the first Mexican-American mayor of a major American city. "Now is the time, compadres," the slim, Harvard-educated city councilman told them simply. "If on the day after the election I hear you saying 'Poor Henry, if only I had known you needed my help,' I think I will cry."

But if any tears were shed among San Antonio's Mexican Americans last week, they were tears of pride and joy. Cisneros, 33, defeated Steen, 59, a pillar of old San Antonio society.

The two men had come to symbolize the split that has dominated San Antonio's politics and social structure for years: Anglo vs. Hispanic, old money vs. new. As a result, the election turned on matters of style and symbolism, rather than any deep disagreement between the candidates over issues. Short, balding and a Reagan supporter, Steen liked to drive his own gray Lincoln Continental to campaign stops in the barrio, carrying bread around with him to feed the pigeons. Cisneros drives a battered 1972 Volkswagen and wears well-tailored jackets, which he inevitably sheds when speaking at churchyard gatherings and large rallies.

The mayor-elect, like most of the city's Spanish-speaking population, grew up in the barrio. Son of a retired civilian administrator for the Army, Cisneros earned a master's degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. in that subject from George Washington University. After spending a year as a White House Fellow in 1971-72, he returned to San Antonio's West Side in 1974 to live with his wife and two daughters. Says Dan Parman, a wealthy conservative who supported Cisneros: "Henry is the guy who can heal the wounds. He's acceptable to people on both sides of the tracks."

Cisneros' election marks the high point of a long struggle by San Antonio's Hispanics to wrest power from the Anglo establishment. Adopting the confrontational tactics of the late Saul Alinsky, local Hispanic leaders in 1974 formed a social action group called Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) and quickly forced the city government to spend $200 million for improvement projects in poor Hispanic neighborhoods. In 1977, San Antonio's minorities won control of the city council for the first time, six seats to five.

Cisneros, first elected a councilman in 1975, was instrumental in bringing a measure of peace to that divided body. When the opposition proposed attracting business to San Antonio by advertising the city's low wages, COPS angrily proposed that no company be allowed to move into San Antonio without guaranteeing workers a minimum wage of $15,000 a year. Arguing that economic development was in everyone's interest, Cisneros helped persuade COPS to drop its demand. He also joined his Anglo colleagues in persuading Control Data Corporation to build a 600-employee computer software plant in a distressed neighborhood on the South Side.

San Antonio is now undergoing an unprecedented surge of growth.

Aided by migration from the North, its population has increased 21%, from 650,000 to 788,000 in the past decade, making it the ninth largest city in the U.S. (Hispanics now account for 53%.) Four new hotels have sprung up along the city's "Riverwalk," a charming, Old World district of shops and cafes along the San Antonio River. So far, seven high-technology electronics firms have announced plans to build or expand in the city; they could create as many as 5,000 new jobs by 1986.

The growth has also created new problems for San Antonio and an increasingly visible rift between Cisneros and COPS. The new mayor hammered away at the need for economic development during his campaign but refused to promise that new building would be confined to inner-city neighborhoods. "You can't give mixed signals to business," he says. "We can't say we want growth but only in certain areas." He believes, for example, that residential water rates must be raised in the city if new water sources are to be developed to attract industry. To the chagrin of COPS, he also favors raising user fees for public services like garbage collection, and acknowledges that the city may eventually have to raise property taxes to help offset a projected $18.5 million deficit.

Like other cities, San Antonio faces cutbacks under the Reagan Administration's new budget. The city's economy still benefits from two important sources: Government spending generated, in part, by the large military installations at nearby Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston; and federal funds for hiring municipal workers and low-level workers in San Antonio's important tourist industry. Cisneros feels he must wean San Antonio from its dependence on Government money. He also concedes that the costs may end up being borne by the Hispanic working people who helped elect him -- and who account for most of the city's 6.6% unemployment rate (vs. 4.2% in Dallas and Houston). For them, the novelty of having the nation's first big-city Mexican-American mayor may quickly wear thin. Acknowledges Cisneros: "I'm not interested in being the first anything. I just want to be the best I can be." By -- RussHoyte. Reported by Robert C. Wurmstedt/San Antonio

With reporting by Robert C. Wurmstedt

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.