San Antonio District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte speaks to reporters during a prior press conference. Credit: Michael Karlis
Conservative Councilman Marc Whyte took to the airwaves Wednesday to rail against Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones for calling out Spurs part-owner Michael Dell for donating more than $6 billion to a Trump White House plan.
“To really go out in public and say those things as the mayor did is really distasteful,” Whyte said during a call-in appearance on talk radio station WOAI 1200.
Whyte is referring to Jones’ viral comments at a Monday town hall about Dell’s willingness to cough up $6.25 billion for President Trump’s youth savings account initiative while expecting San Antonio and Bexar County to cover a substantial share of the cost of the new Spurs arena.
“I wonder if he was able to do that because the city gave up — and the county gave up — so much money for the arena,” Jones said at the event. “Because if you can give $6 billion for these accounts, you could have paid for your own arena.”
Indeed, Dell’s donation came less than a month after Bexar County voters narrowly approved $800 million in public financing for a new arena for the Spurs at Hemisfair as part of the broader Project Marvel sports-and-entertainment district.
In Dell’s defense, Whyte said the Austin-based tech billionaire is a “man of great means, and can spend his money as he wants.”
Added Whyte: “If you want Michael Dell to pay for a whole new arena, let me tell you where the Spurs will not be, because if that was the case, it is very likely then that he could take this team and put it wherever he wanted.”
Dell, whose net worth is around $100 billion, reportedly owns a 10% stake in the team.
Whyte said that regardless of whether Jones wants the arena, it’s nearly impossible to stop it from moving forward.
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