Jaie Avila

2 weeks ago | news4sanantonio.com | Jaie Avila

Should your tax dollars go to private companies to register voters? A News 4 I-Team Waste Watch report last week revealed Bexar County did that, with questionable results. Now lawmakers in Austin are considering whether to make such contracts illegal. As we reported there's disagreement over how successful Bexar County's contract with a firm called Civic Government Solutions actually was. The county and the contractor say your $261 thousand tax dollars helped register 15,081 voters.

3 weeks ago | news4sanantonio.com | Jaie Avila

Shortly before last November's election, Bexar County gave more than a quarter million of your tax dollars to a private company to register voters. The county says the contract paid off and thousands of new voters were registered. But in an exclusive News 4 I-Team Waste Watch report, the former elections administrator says the results were not nearly as successful as the county and the contractor claim.

4 weeks ago | news4sanantonio.com | Jaie Avila

Would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix up your home for a special weekend only to tear it all up afterwards? That's what the City of San Antonio is doing downtown in preparation for the Final Four. The News 4 I-Team's Jaie Avila has details on the costly, temporary facelift in this week's Waste Watch report. We first reported in September that this huge construction project on South Alamo wouldn't be finished in time for the Final Four as originally planned.

1 month ago | news4sanantonio.com | Jaie Avila

VIA Transit's primary mission is to get more people to ride the bus. So why has it spent millions of public dollars on a housing project that has stalled out? As the News 4 I-Team's Jaie Avila explains in this week's Waste Watch report, the agency is pushing ahead with more development plans. Back in 2017, VIA spent $5.2 million to buy six buildings that make up the Scobey complex with plans to turn it into apartments and commercial space.

1 month ago | news4sanantonio.com | Jaie Avila

The federal government has frozen millions of dollars that were scheduled to be reimbursed to the City of San Antonio for running the Migrant Resource Center. City leaders won't say if that means local taxpayers will be stuck paying for some of the cost to operate the shelter. The city was notified last week the money was being withheld while the Department of Homeland Security reviews whether FEMA funding to house immigrants was used for "illegal activities".