The city of San Antonio will not submit a bid to host the 2020 Republican National Convention, a decision announced after council members met Thursday in closed session to discuss the matter.
The cost of pursuing the event — an international spectacle that could draw 40,000 visitors, including 15,000 reporters — outweighs the potential economic impact that could be $200 million, Mayor Ron Nirenberg and most council members agreed.
The host city, through a local committee that would be composed of business leaders, would be expected to raise about $70 million, including about $6 million from public coffers.
“As a whole, the City Council did not feel it was worth it to move forward,” Nirenberg said shortly after concluding the closed-session meeting with his colleagues.
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Though there was no actual vote in the council’s executive session, the mayor said the consensus in the room was not to proceed with a bid for the multi-day convention scheduled for August of 2020. The decision, he said, extends to the Democratic National Convention.
San Antonio has not bid on a national political convention in two decades, Nirenberg said.
The RNC issue has come to the forefront because party leaders specifically asked for a bid from San Antonio, and the GOP representative in charge of site selection visited San Antonio in March to personally ask for leaders here to consider submitting a bid.
See here for the background. Seems to me that the RNC doesn’t exactly have cities beating on their door to host this thing, and given the lead time necessary to raise the money and make the preparations, time is beginning to run short. That’s not San Antonio’s problem, however. There are some people who aren’t happy with Mayor Nirenberg’s decision, and they’ll get their chance to express that next May. I doubt it’s a serious problem for him, but you never know. Good luck finding a sucker city willing to put in a bid, RNC. The Current and the Rivard Report have more.
I hear Enid, Oklahoma is nice in the summer…