After eight years, four elections, hundreds of protests, and a pandemic, Ron Nirenberg walked out of San Antonio’s city hall as mayor for the last time on June 18. Once referred to as “Liberal Ron,” the 48-year-old had more recently served as a pragmatic counterbalance to the city council, which has shifted from the pro-business orientation of Julián Castro’s “Decade of Downtown” to a more activist and progressive body pushing opposition to state and national politics.
For the immediate future, Nirenberg will teach communication at his local alma mater, Trinity University, probably sticking to his regimen of weight lifting, taco eating, and Spurs watching. But he admits that he’s not done with politics or public service—though the former is generally what he has to put up with to accomplish the latter.
Devoted to the basics of good governance, Nirenberg served during a period that was marked more by the drama outside his office than by any inside it. That low-key style has paid off—he served the maximum number of terms the city’s charter allowed, and most insiders consider him well positioned to run for another office. He just won’t say which one he’s got his eye on.
Texas Monthly: Let’s put ourselves in 2017, during your first days in office. Could you have foreseen a more turbulent eight years to be mayor?
Ron Nirenberg: No. I trade notes with my peers across the country, and we’re all in agreement: This is probably the most crisis-filled, tumultuous period of time for any elected official, and certainly for city leaders as a last line of defense against health emergencies, natural disasters, and social unrest. And it’s all hit us in a very short period of time.
TM: In an interview you did with Texas Monthly at the beginning of your first term, you said citizen involvement in government is one of your passions. What’s the reality been like?
RN: When you open the process up, you’re going to be confronted with a lot of uncomfortable realities that have to be dealt with. But that’s ultimately the only way we move forward. I remember, vividly, a moment where I stood on the steps at the courthouse during one of the [George Floyd] rallies in 2020, and I said, “I am the mayor of the city, and we’re going to achieve these improvements, these reforms. We’re gonna do this together, and I am accountable to this community.” [Editor’s note: Nirenberg’s actual words were, “I’m the mayor of this g—damn city and we’re gonna make change
together.”] What a lot of people took from that is that I was going to do exactly what they wanted. That’s not how it works. I’m accountable to everybody—some people are gonna get some of what they want but not everything. The fiercest advocates oftentimes will not be satisfied. But that’s okay. You just have to create trust in the process.
