Melissa Cabello Havrda’s six years on the City Council had been marked by a quiet and measured presence on the dais — until last week.
That’s when the disability attorney took center stage in an effort on the City Hall steps to oust City Attorney Andy Segovia, who she accused of locking the council out of contract negotiations with the politically influential firefighters’ union.
It gave a rare public glimpse of a potential mayoral contender who isn’t shy about speaking her mind behind the scenes, but presents a far more moderate, reserved version of herself to the public.
“I know Melissa personally, and I know she’s not a fan of the nuclear option,” said Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), who was among four other council members at Thursday’s press conference. “But I don’t think [this was] out of character because she is also bold and fiery. The public is just now getting to see it.”
Thursday’s press conference featuring five of the 11 members of council came after uncharacteristically pointed disagreements with the city manager during the previous day’s budget planning meeting, which ended with a huddle in Cabello Havrda’s fourth-floor office to demand a council briefing on the matter.
For a City Council that likely includes several members jockeying for Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s seat in 2025, election season has opened up some previously unthinkable criticism of Nirenberg’s administration, such as Councilman Manny Pelaez (D8) and Councilman John Courage’s (D9) attacks on Ready for Work.
But critics have seized on Cabello Havrda’s decision to single out a member of city staff, causing potentially irreparable damage to her relationships, and possibly a violation of the City Charter.
“It’s not [City Council’s] purview to participate in staff positions,” said Councilwoman Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4), who is also mulling a mayoral bid in 2024 and who wasn’t among the council members who held the fiery press conference. “Andy was shamed and dragged through the mud. And it is unfair.”
Cabello Havrda, for her part, characterized her actions surrounding the fire union as a last resort.
“When you come from a place of collaboration, but you’re not seeing collaboration happen, you’ve got to break through that wall,” she said. “I’m real cool until I’m not.”
A stump speech preview
In January, Cabello Havrda all but announced a mayoral campaign at Dream Week, saying she planned to make history in a city that hasn’t yet elected a Hispanic woman as its leader.
“They told me Westside girls don’t become lawyers … but I proved them wrong. They told me it’s too late in life to get an MBA, it’s too late in life to start a business, but I proved them wrong,” she said. “… They’re also telling me there has never been a Latina mayor, but I am determined to prove them wrong.”
But Cabello Havrda’s middle-of-the-road politics haven’t garnered many natural political allies over the years.
She was part of a crowded field running to replace longtime District 6 Councilman Ray Lopez in 2017, losing to conservative Greg Brockhouse, then winning the seat in 2019 when Brockhouse ran for mayor.
In her campaigns, she embraced socially progressive values and pro-business and law enforcement stances that have gotten her reelected twice in the politically swingy Westside district, yet frustrated many of the outside groups that influence city elections.
She won some progressive support earlier this year when she joined progressive Councilwoman Teri Castillo (D5) in suggesting the city’s reproductive health fund should be used to pay for out-of-state abortions.
Those dynamics worked against her the last municipal election, when the dominant issue was the later-defeated Justice Charter, which progressives put on the ballot and business groups opposed.
Mayoral hopefuls Pelaez and Courage took the side of business groups, even walking off the dais in protest at one point. Cabello Havrda sought to appease both sides on a divisive issue, enraging some progressives who wanted her to go all in.
“Sometimes people want the loud, brash person and that’s, in my world, that’s not how I get things done,” Cabello Havrda said.
Playing with fire?
Headed into 2025, the firefighters’ union contract is up for renegotiation, and Cabello Havrda is aligning herself with a group known for outsized political influence, as well as its take-no-prisoners approach.
The last time the union and city staff went head-to-head, the San Antonio Professional Firefighters’ Association led a ballot initiative that limited the pay and tenure of the city manager, resulting in the retirement of former City Manager Sheryl Sculley in 2018.
The following year Brockhouse, a former political consultant for the police and fire unions, rode their support all the way to a tough runoff in the mayor’s race against Nirenberg. His rematch without the unions’ public support the following year didn’t find nearly the same momentum.
Now again, the promising talks that began in February between the city and the firefighters’ union have broken down, and accusations of politicking have followed. The union’s three-year contract as proposed would cost $363 million more than the city’s $157 million five-year proposal, according to the city.
The fire union president accused the city of manipulating the calculations, while Segovia accused council of leaking information about the bargaining from executive session meetings. To stop the leaks, Segovia said, he halted executive session meetings and instead started to brief council members one by one.
“This is why we have our City Attorney office do [contract negotiations],” said Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran, a supporter of the fire union who agreed with Segovia’s approach. “We [council members] don’t get into this because of the political clout that these unions have.”
But grumbling among other council members boiled over at a budget planning meeting last week, when City Manager Erik Walsh said the city is already facing a budget deficit and will have to make further cuts if the city gives in to a more expensive fire contract.
“Very honestly, I think it’s a ploy from the [city manager] to say: ‘Well, where are you going to cut?’” said Cabello Havrda, who sparred openly with Walsh during that meeting. “We’re starting with false premises. … We’re still talking about a lot of hypotheticals. And I’m not going to talk about cutting until we have real numbers.”
Attacks on city leadership have been echoed by the fire union, which posted a video from the Thursday press conference on Facebook saying, “We applaud our Council members from Districts 2, 5, 6, 7, and 10 for demonstrating real leadership.”
A divided council
Cabello Havrda agrees that her approach to the past week’s disputes have been a departure from her normal approach.
“I always come from a place of collaboration,” she said. “I’m very deliberate, I think things through. My first term, people kept saying I was very quiet and I was getting a lot done. … I don’t make rash decisions.”
That’s part of what made her press conference last week so surprising, several of her colleagues said: it didn’t follow the proper channels of escalation.
“The way that it was done was so abrupt,” said Rocha Garcia. “Someone could have just addressed it with [Walsh] and said: ‘Can we talk about this?’”
Cabello Havrda acknowledged she had not formally informed the city manager of her concerns about Segovia’s performance over the years.
“If that was an effective way to get things done, we wouldn’t be here,” she said. “We’re doing it because we had to. … It’s all out in the open now.”
Courage, who formally launched his own bid in January, went further: “I wonder if the council woman of District 6 did this to kick off her mayoral campaign? If that’s true, I think it’s a pretty bad idea on her part.”
Cabello Havrda denied that her potential run for mayor — she’s still considering the idea — had anything to do with her frustrations with Segovia.
“I’m not doing this with any ulterior motive. It just got to a point where it was that frustrating. It’s that inconsistent is that incorrect,” she told the San Antonio Report last week.
But councilmen McKee-Rodriguez and Marc Whyte (D10) say calling for the city attorney’s job reflected long-simmering frustration that’s united council members across the political spectrum.
She’s serving alongside newer members who are frustrated not just with Segovia, but with Nirenberg slow-walking their proposals — and a city staff they say lacks transparency.
“I’ve hit this wall, and I’m not the only one, clearly,” said Cabello Havrda, who rounded up the other four council members in her office after the contentious budget planning meeting.
That group included two sophomores, McKee-Rodriguez and Castillo, as well as freshmen Whyte and Marina Alderete Gavito (D7).
“The power is in numbers, and then recognizing, hey, there’s a systemic issue here,” McKee-Rodriguez said. “I think that’s a great demonstration of a leader, someone who can make connections between people and try to find resolution.”
In any case, Cabello Havrda has no regrets about her new high-risk, high-reward approach — which has already resulted in a previously unscheduled agenda item at Thursday’s council meeting to discuss the fire contract. Council will discuss Segovia’s performance on Wednesday during a closed executive session.
“There’s a lot of weight lifted off my shoulders right now knowing that this is going to be a public process,” she said Friday. “I’m not stressed.”
