 Number three, welcome to Wilson Junior, Chairman of Elmville Trust. The answer is yeah, number four. Call the roll please, call the roll. Hope and Roddy here. Francisco Cigarola on the phone. Jim Dan, Bob on the phone. I'm here. Thank you, Jim. We have a form, thanks everybody for coming this morning. First item on the agenda is a video. Next item, any questions if not any motion to approve officer space? Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next item is resident resolution, designating authority for check frame. Yes, in here Brooklyn there is CEO's ability to delegate check, signing authority. Basically he is delegating under the authority he has as already approved by the board. So that's up for approval by the board today. Correct. That's not a general authority, right? That's not a general authority. Yes, you should ask a long list on case by case basis. Right. Right. Any questions? Any motion to approve? I'll move as to the resolution. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next item number three is whistleblower policy approval. Doug, I believe you're... Yeah, so every good governance for nonprofits has had a whistleblower procedure whereby anybody who is suspicious of or concerned about any kind of act has protection to make that issue aware of the board or management. And so we have a whistleblower policy that's circulated to you and that policy allows for staff to directly bring in a matter of attention to the CEO. If there's concerns about the conduct of the CEO, it's stipulated that that person can contact the board chair directly and bring any concerns they have. So the person is important to confidentiality. They can be anonymous if they want to be. We encourage them to not be, but they can bring anonymous complaints or whatever. It's just a...I think it's a good governance document, something that we want to do. And therefore, we have proposed that. Well, I appreciate you understanding. Any questions? If not, can you turn the motion to approve the whistleblower policy? Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion passed. Next item number four, bylaw amendment. Yes, sir. Because of some changes in the board makeup, just proposing today will be sending around bylaw amendments soon that corrects or adjusts some items in the bylaws based on the change of makeup of the board. So that's really a future item, but it's in here for y'all's consideration if you can read around. Either at the next meeting or at a special meeting. Right. So no action today? No action today. Item number five, four or one, two. Floor your kitchen amendment. So our current 401K, we need a couple of changes in the 401K plan. One is we've changed the corporate name. So we need to change the corporate name on the 401K plan. The second change we're proposing to make is our present plan is that if you're an employee on December 31st that we then will match your contributions. But if you, for the prior year. So it's set up that staff who might be only working for a couple of months and making contributions, it's maxed out eight percent, are matched. But staff who have worked for years and then actually terminate their employment in the last part of the year they would not be matched for the contribution. So first off, we think that that's not a good policy. Secondly, it's really hard to administer. Because you have to go back and look and see, well, who stopped, who started to stop their employment when, make that calculation, make sure you get them all right. And the easier way to do it to make a payroll system is to create a date in which to become eligible and then to make the contributions of 401K on every payroll period when the employee makes that matching contribution. So it's easier to administer. We think it's better for employees. We did a, so in the past there was no investing period or no period of longevity before activated. So if you started employment on December 1st and you made your contribution, you were actually matched on December 31st. So what we did in the plan, as we said, we're going to wait six months to be employed for six months before we start doing this. That actually kind of created a minor offset in what the cost would be. So any additional cost for matching employees on a payroll basis is mitigated. Our total payroll cost, our total cost of employment is $120,000. We asked to make this at $2,000 additional expense of the year. But we think it's better for the employee and so we think it's much easier to administer. So we're asking for your approval to make those amendments in the plan documents. Sure. And it seems like a fair approach. And one thing for sure is the clarity is that you want to proceed to do this. Employees would be appreciative. So I appreciate your talking with us. Any questions? If not, can we take a motion to approve the 401-page organization? Second. Second. All in favor? Next item is under tab C. Now report to the board. Listed here, Doug, if you'll take it from the count. Sure, Christian. So the report we gave the board covers the period of time from January 1st to March 31st of this year. A couple of things. I'm just going to start on page two and I'll tell you when I change pages so you can kind of follow this or if you've got questions. A couple of things you might notice happening right now. Actually, this week we've opened up a new retail outlet on Crockett Street that's being run by Event Network. It's an opportunity for people to actually purchase Alamo related merchandise without coming into the property. So we think it's an opportunity to use the storefront. The GLO was real cooperative with us in making that space available. So we're filling up retail space. The store opens this week. Also this time period, we opened the new exhibit, Fortress Alamo, which you saw in the board video. And we also launched a new family friendly walking tours in February. Our attendance this year in this period of time has been 1.2 million from the fiscal year to date number. It's 1.2 million. We're up 17% over last year in the same time period. We've also, I'm always really happy about student engagement. We've got 31,000 school children engaged in programs we're doing. And we're running about a 34% capture rate on the Alamo exhibit for people who are coming through the property. The way we kind of measure how well we do on our changing exhibits is what's the capture rate relative to total attendance. It's never going to match it. And 34% is running pretty good on that. On page three, I mentioned a little bit about the attendance numbers. But also we've got a nice media plug on the new children's tour of the annual commemoration program. We're at the top. To fully understand the history of Texas, you must experience the Alamo. The exhibits are thoughtfully displayed and the grounds were beautifully well maintained. So that's what we aspire to do every day. And I think the staff here does a great job of performing on that. I would note on our attendance in the first quarter, we're up 4%, up 7%. And in March, though, I think it's really a remarkable number. If you look back two years ago, we had 136,000 people in March of 2016. And this year we had 180,000. So we're looking at almost a 50,000 increase in the month of March. And I think some of that has been due to the increased programming we've done around commemoration and around those events. Do you think the increase also was attributed to the final four? The final four was a bit of a factor in that. Which level of pilot would... I looked at all the daily reports. I know the final four went strong, but the number of struggles I commemoration we did. And the Fiesta, which is outside the side room. The Fiesta even was ran stronger. Spring breaks are really hot here. On page four, I would just note our volunteer program continues to grow and to do well. And this year we brought out 22 new active volunteers. And on page five, we did a monetary calculation of that in the first quarter. And so the first quarter, that's the value of that's about $78,000 in one quarter for volunteers. So while that program is growing and it's really active, it really does pay off a really tangible value to the organization. So if someone wants to volunteer, what's the procedure? You can just contact us through our website and info at Albo.org. And then we'll have somebody follow up with you. Or you can just call in and say, I'd like to volunteer. And we'll sign you up. We've got a volunteer person who works in that branch. There's people trained so we can find out what area they want to volunteer in. So you see a lot of volunteers around the living history weekends. We're really lucky in that respect that a lot of people who are re-enactors come in and give time and energy. And especially when you're doing something big like the Cannon Fest, a lot of volunteers come in to make those events happen. That's clear. How do we appreciate that? How do we appreciate that? We recognize them. We had a recognition event a couple of Saturdays ago. And one of my favorite events. So you thank them often. You treat them well. We have some limitations on things we can do just because the regulations are how we can spend money. So we have to do it with good, positive, personal affirmations. And we did have a volunteer banquet, a volunteer luncheon. And to credit the staff, because we are really limited if we can't buy meals, it would take months. So to credit the staff, the staff all made all the food. And brought the food and thanked the volunteers. So that's how we made that event happen. On page six, we talked a little bit about auditors. And what I'd say on auditors is while I like the trend line over a two-year period, we're not really satisfied with where we are in current year. In the first quarter, we're off 12% on that, on the audio tour sales. While still a lot higher than it was two years ago, our goal is to really drive those numbers year-to-year and get incremental growth and impact on that. So we're developing some strategies to kind of see if we need to adjust our point of sales, how we make the sales, so we're going to get a hyper-capture rate system we're selling. Yeah, if you could come and report back to us on that. I'm going to put you on page 10. I always sucker for the education program, so that comes from being in the museum field for so long, I think. One of the really great things of the album is that the history is important, not just to Texans, but to really people nationally. And people are really intrigued with how we tell the history. It's really a very comprehensive and complex history. There's so many nuances that are important to tell. And so we had two educated workshops that were highly attended this year. One was on the Military and Mexican Independence in 1803 and 1821, and then the Colonialization and Texas Revolution from 1821 to 1836. And we get a lot of teacher participation that comes, and this is how teachers find out how to teach Texas history. So we've been really seeing it as a go-to resource by teachers. This is one of the programs we really hope to expand in the future. Secondly, it was really great this year that we had the San Antonio such a great convention market. We get opportunities created by that convention market as well. And so the National School Board Association was here, and we presented at the National School Board Association, and we also presented at the National Council for History Education. So those are just great things you get by virtue of being in San Antonio and by being in the album. Doug, can I ask you a question? I see that you got the distance education. That is for students, is it not for the teachers? Is that right? That's students, yes. Okay. Is there an opportunity to do distance education to the educators? There is. It's kind of in our program plans for the future. Some of the things we're looking at, and part of what you're part of, you'll see all the details on the interpretive master plan we're doing. So all those sorts of things are fit into that interpretive master plan concept, in terms of how do we do future interpretation, how do we develop capacity, what kind of technological resources do we have? We look forward to actually having a museum building. We can actually have spaces that are actually set up to do this kind of distance learning. We can produce the content, and we can do a live interactions, or we can just produce the content and make it available online for teachers and students to download. The distance education part is so important to be able to load that in the education process. It's one of the things we're really limited in terms of how well we can do that right now, and it's one of the major considerations we're putting in terms of design for the future, is how do we set up the school bus drop off zones, pick up zones, how do we set it up to actually, you have to pull some schools through, because they don't come one or two or five, they come and have one, two, or five bus loads, and so you have to have to keep those groups together to manage all that, and it takes a lot of infrastructure we don't presently have. But it was a lot of fun talking and having fun with that. While I love distance learning, I think it's a great thing. There's nothing here in place as people are actually coming to experience in the Alamo. So the big distance learning is about how we do reach people who literally can't get here, but to me it's also a way for schools to get an opportunity to learn about what they're going to discover when they get here, so we can prepare them before they show up, and then we can also prepare for them some reflective and reinforcing tools for them when the teachers get back to the classroom and think, well, when you're at the Alamo, remember when we saw this, when we saw that. It's education. We cannot educate a student to learn a lot of content about Texas history, about the history of San Antonio, about the whole era, the 300 years of history we're trying to tell. If we think that our entire opportunity to impact them is the hour and a half that they're here. So that really takes reinforcement through a whole process. So that's all in our planning structure. For page 11, the unique things I find about the Alamo compared to all the rest of my museum career is people really pay attention to you more than I've ever seen before in my career. And so in three months we've had 15.8 million Facebook impressions. That's pretty astronomical. 700,000 Twitter impressions. So people do pay attention to anything that says the Alamo. And these are only counting the ones talking about us as the Alamo. If you look at Twitter feed on just the words the Alamo, it's probably quite Google that. Page 11 we talked about some of our public programming we did and what I want to just kind of pay attention to specifically page 12, I'm sorry, is the bottom section we talked about we did commemoration this year. Uniquely this year we decided that instead of doing events just for several days or points around commemoration or just doing things around March 6th, we decided we wanted to do the entire 13 days and we actually did 14 days of programming. So we did 14 days of programming. We had 51,000 visitors participating in the programming when we conducted that. We had really small, intimate, really great events. We had an evening with heroes, which we had 330 people came for an evening program. That was a fee-based program. So people paid for that. We made some money on it, but it paid for all the costs of the program and it was a really kind of immersive experience for people. We had a Never Surrender or Retreat event. They had over 6,000 people. Don't say the Travis' famous letter on February 24th. And we had the Return of the Cannons event, which was a great event that we held with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Commissioner George P. Bush. We're here where they welcomed back the first fully restored battle cannons back to the Alamo we would now install here. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. We had the Crockett Village Festival, which had over 6,000 people at that event, where I had to twice for myself of meeting the impressive impression of David Crockett who is a 5-year-old young man who shows up here several times a month and his parents bring him because he wants to be built place other than the Alamo. And he comes in full David Crockett with the idea and we went and celebrate his birthday with him in turn 6. So they invited... I thought it was a big deal when we were talking to him and chatting with him and he said, I can't take a picture with you because you're so cute. And he said, oh, mom said that's fine, that's fine. He loves his picture taken. I kind of suspected that. So they invited us to come to his birthday party. So we went to his birthday party. They helped him celebrate that too. It's just a great thing to be here. We also did Remember the Defenders event, which had over 4500 people honoring the famous Alamo defenders. And with that, we're really pleased to report that we did this as a partnership program with the Alamo Defender Descendants Association and a tribute to a really special event where we're completely Spencer White who's here today as a part of that. And this is a great event. We also created on page 13, in addition to the Alamo Defenders Association, we also did partnership programs with the daughters of the public, the sons of the public of Texas with the San Antonio Living History Association with the Grand Lodge of Texas and many other groups. So one of the things we're trying to do is find ways we can expand our program by actually having partnership with other organizations. It allows them to bring their energy, their knowledge and table, we're able to bring some more resources. And we do these things as collaborative partners. And so we develop the programs together and we share in that and I think it's been successful and really well-received by all of the organizations that we've done in so far. We constantly do event rental sales. We're around this room and we also ran out for private events. But we had, in this period of time, we had over 26 private military corporate events with over 2,700 people attending. We had one event. I think they had 700 people in one evening. That was our largest event that we did. Returned to the page 14, I always liked these heat maps which provided the work to show where people came from. And the way we monitor this, because we don't, because we're free and public, we monitor this by actually recording the zip codes if everybody has a gift shop to have an action. So while, you know, you can find probably a statistically more accurate way to do total visitation. This is the people who've actually been here as visitors who've made an intentional effort to visit, not something just kind of coming behind. And so we did a pretty good gauge and it's probably pretty accurate in what we give up in actually having a kind of a scientific sampling. We actually gained by the numbers of people who were able to record. And so what this shows is that out in Texas, our number one metro area is Dallas Fort Worth, with 6%. San Antonio, Houston comes in second with 5%. And San Antonio comes in third, like it's with 3.68%. We turned it over to... I'm amazed how many people come... I think the other thing that people always amaze at is that 70% of our visitors come from outside of Texas. So 27% of our visitors are from Texas and 72% come from outside of Texas. And these are people who are in the gift shop. So this doesn't count the people who are taking the selfie walking past the front. These are people who actually made an effort to go through the church and spend time on the grounds. You know, it's really kind of an amazing number. And the percent of the Texans, how much percent of San Antonio's and what percent of other places in Texas? Well, San Antonio's 0.4%. So 95% of the other Texans are... 95% of the other Texans are not from San Antonio. On page 18, we just mentioned of the other events we've been working on. We've got... We've got to come up with a future event. We've got a... I think I'll call that an action. On page 19, we talked about the Canada Restoration Project and that's really been exciting. We're actually taking the original battle cannons from the Alamo. And we are conserving them with Texas A&M. And these cannons have sat outside for 50 years and have really suffered from sitting outside on a concrete base and then rushed in because of having the metal next to concrete, which is a city. And so we're sending up to Texas A&M. You'll really discover things like the four-pounder that came back was actually cast in Sweden. So it allows us to tell a story about... You just don't realize that San Antonio here you are in the early 19th century and it's international commerce that's taking place. Whether it's cannons or other goods, international trade was very active in taking place in that time period. So we've done that and now we're moving through. We've just set up four cannons that have been done and have been installed here. And we're reinstalling them on the arcade just to the south of the church. And some people say, why are you installing them the way you are because we're actually pointing it down on mounts so that actually the traditional way you mount retired cannons. So first off, it's a traditional way you do a retired cannon. And secondly, it actually protects them more so they can get some break from being underneath the archers of the arcade. And secondly, by having the muzzle pointed down and the muzzle pointed down, they don't collect moisture inside which will cause a lot of rust and damage to them. So we hope some day they have everybody's cannons inside our museum. So we have two more in there. And we've got two over there now. The interesting thing is we have nine cannons. No, we're 20. We have nine and 21. Yeah, so there were 21. There's two at La Maleta. At the entrance there, there were battle cannons and Red McCombes has one that's in the briscoe. So we know we're a few in the US Army. What I would say is kind of interesting right now is there's speculation if the cannon we just sent to Texas A&M is a 16-pounder or if it is the 18-pounder. And so people have debated this for a long time. So now the big debate begins. Which isn't? And when we've done this, we hope to have an answer to that. So you talk about the 18-pounder that was at the southwest corner of the compound. So some people have always said this is the 18-pounder. There's also the opinion that that's a 16-pounder. What we're hoping to determine through Texas A&M and doing a research on it is actually perhaps they can get a conclusive answer to that. And don't we have that 18-pounder or we just have a really cool, big 16-pounder. So either one. One of those we prefer, but we don't try to see that. On page 20, we talk a little bit about our security system upgrades. I think the most important things about that are that we've really been upgrading our CCTV system. And so we've got a lot more observation of premises that we can do today than we were able to do a year ago. And so it's been a very substantial increase. Also, if you notice, our rangers now have two weapons on their belts. They have one that you're probably really familiar with and they have that yellow one to the taser. And so we felt like it was important to have non-manifold response methods available to the rangers. And so we invested in the tasers and all of our rangers had done the trick to do the formal training and certification program. So they all go through the training and they're all certified in the use of tasers. We also added three additional rangers to our course in January. So they're on duty again. They're, I'll tell you, it's been a very busy three months in the Alamo. But every day is exciting and we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do. Well, please give our appreciation to the staff for executing all these, a lot of work we need to do from the video to this list. It's no small task to reduce these things on any basis. So everyone's sure to appreciate that. Our next item, number nine, one, five, under five, number nine, is a territory plan update. Gene, could you give us a quick update on where the interpreter plans are? So for the board's certification, bringing up today to be in October of 2015, we signed a agreement with the city of San Antonio with the GLO for a committee to do the master plan, supervise the master plan, and then supervise the interpreter design. The master plan, that committee met every Tuesday for three years. It's still meeting. We met by the afternoon for four hours. It's become a real labor of love. Nobody in the committee is getting paid for that. We have two members from the endowment. I'm on the committee and I'm on the master's on the committee. Two members from the city of San Antonio with the councilman, and city manager Cheryl. Two members from the GLO. And currently, Brian Preston and Hector Vaillier are serving. The committee is accepted the master plan and was approved by the city council last August. It's in place. Right now, right now, we're extremely active working on side design. And on the Did we lose somebody? Yeah, I'm going to put my stuff on mute. Welcome, Francisco. We're glad to have you. The committee is working extremely hard, paying a lot of attention to all the public input that we got during all of our public meetings, which is extremely helpful to what the committee is doing with the site designers today and with the interpreting planners. Also very helpful is the GLO has just finished how many cities 10, 10 Texas cities where they took the tour on the road met with citizens across the state presented the master plan discussed what was going on at the ALMO got input from them. There's also a survey out in the field with Texans what they think about the ALMO and what we should be doing here. So we're taking all of that into consideration. The committee continues to want to produce for Texas and for San Antonio a world-class experience for visitors and an absolute world-class museum to show the artifacts that we have to show the artifacts that came to us from the Phil Collins exhibit which we're currently stored in Austin in the vault and we can't show them and to give the board a little experience early on here the staff allowed me to put on the white gloves and hold the saber that came from Phil Collins that will be eventually displayed in the museum and I said so what's special about the saber and they said well would you put your reading glasses on and read the hilt that's inscribed it's brass hilt around the top of the sword and so I started to get this where I could read and it said Presidente Antonio Lopez de San Antonio they said you're holding the saber and I said wow how do we display this we've got to find a place it's so valuable and it's so valuable and the ability to display this and his 1835 white hold so we're working to how do we incorporate an absolute world-class museum into this experience for the visitors so that we can display all of this and then we got the situation that the greatest artifact that we have this is going to be a living museum a partially open-air museum and the biggest artifacts that we have and the best for the church and the longer so preservation of those items and incorporating them into the museum experience is really difficult and the designers are working overtime to get that done and I think before too long we're going to be on the show so that we can get their response to it City is very engaged when y'all all should think the city, the mayor, the council Cheryl Spelly and Roberta Trevino are at every meeting and that's many, many hours of work on their behalf there's no deadline for the council to do practical approval on this we'd like to get most of this work completed for the summer but we're not going to be rushed into getting it right so that's just an update if any of the board has any questions for me I'd be glad to try to answer them but I just want you to know that that work is ongoing and I think you will be able to see some of it this summer I know there's a lot of volunteer hours it's much appreciated and the end goal is to in the 2023 I think in the 2023 so to get back up from there there are certain things we have to get going now when we did the master plan we looked at planning, construction all the work had to be done and we backed up and so that's the schedule that we're on is to stay on that schedule so that we have the total new experience the new museum and everything in place for the celebration of the Alamo being built in this site the original Alamo as you all know 1718 which is what we date the city to but the Alamo was built somewhere else at that point and the Alamo was moved in 1724 to this location so the 300th anniversary of this location is 2024 we have all of this ready for that celebration and I'm sure the city has a big plan for the the end of 2023 will be here before we know it it seems like yesterday that we started this it was March of 2015 it seems like yesterday so the time is flying by and one thing I've come to appreciate is construction in a historic setting which is a whole different overlay on a credit call it adds several layers of difficulty to it but we've got extremely good people working on that protecting these assets so I hope you don't have any questions that's all I have to report thank you Jane I appreciate it Doug you want to expand a little bit on the Alamo Treasure Roadshow I know that that just recently was completed yep we uh so one of our things that we've done we've got lots of public hearings in San Antonio and a lot of the meetings but the Alamo there's a lot of Texas history and statewide there's a lot of statewide difference so we decided to put together an Alamo Roadshow and go out there and talk to you so we went to 10 cities across Texas we started in April 9th and we got done on May 1st we went to Laredo we went to El Paso Adelaide, Tyler, Rockwall College Station Waco, McAllen while we're on the road we talked with we spoke with a lot of people who gather information on the Alamo defenders the descendants of defenders on Texas Revolutionaries on Texas Rangers, government officials and lots of other groups so we're very interested we also did a simple survey instrument of people and give a chance to make comments and I think that the kind of predominant number one response that that was oh this isn't what you're planning on doing or contemplating doing isn't anything like what I've written on social media in the news and that was by far the biggest response and we had people who came to these meetings ready to fight and by the time they left they go oh well that's what I always thought you shouldn't have and they said thank you we're very successful in that regard the media reports state the media reporting on this statewide were really all positive and I don't think Alamo we've gone through we've had a month of nothing positive media for a long time but we definitely that road show was really successful in that regard so it was just one of our many ways we tried to communicate the public and we'll be doing more things obviously as Gene mentioned as we have more plans and more things to show everything's building on that master plan though and so it was a good result we also people who brought amazing artifacts or that they own personally I remember watching Ernesto in the Gallup looking at a young lady who came with a linen map that I think Ernesto was jealous of and he wanted to see if he could talk or to give him into our collection but it was fascinating artifacts some people just brought things and said look this is a Portuguese history of my family what can I do to take better care of it and so in the case of the map Ernesto told the young lady she needed to quit folding it it was the biggest thing she could quit folding your map and so and so I went through that I know Dr. Litter is talking to some people about important documents people had that they helped that were hundreds of years old and how they could better conserve them and also it gives us an opportunity if we're doing exhibits in the future and we for instance that map that the young lady has in the Gallup we now know where that map is we've got her information and if that fit in to exhibit I'm sure that she was appreciative that she would load that to us in the exhibit in the future so that's one of the reasons we felt like this was not just to go out and talk to people but to listen to people and also to bring their stories to us so people would come to us and they would say well and we would record them so here's my story people go back all the way to the Spanish era and to the Mexican era and to the Revolutionary era so it was a great thing it was a chance for our museum curatorial team to go out and talk to people and get to do what museum people just love to do and listen to people's personal history help them understand their history and also to get to look at some kind of pretty cool artifacts that we didn't know were out there the crest that we got on map is available on our website the preps I don't think we've posted it on the website could we post it so it would be really interesting for everybody to see how we received and then let it back out and we did we did collect a lot of instead of a system to track all that so we could tell I think it was a great idea and a great effort to do that because it's a great reward for my people I think that we can just it's really a jewel of San Antonio but also the state of things and it's interesting what people have in their attic for whatever I mean I'm shocked it was been in somebody's family I'd like if you know I'll actually send staff on this as well along with the St. Archivist and some of their people the staff that did this I went to two of the events I didn't go on the road and then I they get to stay in pretty inexpensive hotels that probably most of us wouldn't want to select for our personal vacations and travel in a bus from place to place to place and do a show every night so they were away from their families and their homes and traveling they were working very hard to do this but that's the commitment you have with the people who are here and they're really there to serve citizens of Texas it wasn't easy to go on the road to all those nights great thanks Doug next question if you can give us an update on a couple of projects so some of the programs we've got coming up we'll continue with the canning restoration project until we get all the cannons restored it's outside the time period reporting so this is a military dam on May 6th so it's actually outside the time period but it's already happened it was a great event which included the military drill team performance in Alamosa we're also doing programming on each military branch as birthday so in June we'll have the Army in August we have the post guard in September the Air Force October we have the Navy November we have the Marine Corps December we have the National Guard we're continuing a lecture series it's really been very popular received we're here with Pam Rosser our conservator talking about the work she's done packed the room out and was really highly attended and really appreciated we've got special programming going on Independence Day and Veterans Day and we're doing our normal kind of quarterly themed events as well and we're doing movie nights so if you want to come sit in Alamart and watch a movie some night it's a fun evening as well so we've got lots of things are going on and I'm pretty sure everybody can get online and sign up for our newsletter so you know about all the events that are happening and coming to participate I want to thank the newsletter I've been receiving my newsletter I forget about things and I really appreciate it popping up and people are all signed up for it because it's really helpful to know business what's going on to be held I think the lecture series that we've added to this series has been really well received and I think it's important in great effort by our Education Department Greg, thank you for and please thank the staff for all of your hard work sounds like everything's moving forward I appreciate the tracking of attendance and rentals and so on because it's important to be able to track our programming and always work to improve that is a comment from the public Doug, do you want to have your state so we're going to open it up for public comment at this point we're not going to respond to comments, this is a chance for us to listen so I'll make notes so the comments can make and we're also recording everything so we could ask the people who have something they want to share, I would board and you can talk to the microphone over here and as you speak what I will do is I will call out your name and I'll call out the name of the next person so maybe the next person lying can go and stand behind them so we don't spend too much time kind of we have three minutes, a lot of it, three person we're going to ask for one or three minutes we're on the list we need you to respect the people and pay on the list so we're going to start now and we've got a really fancy time here you'll hear it go beep, beep, beep and the first person is Lamar Henry and Lamar as we call him by and I may be right good morning everybody come here this morning and spread an opinion about the Senatap and reimagining the Alamo we're just a few we speak with many people here in San Antonio, Texas the input from experts can be important it will always be input from many informed citizens that's truly important the will of the people to reflect policy not the agenda of a few committees that were produced behind closed doors there have been transparency from the beginning there might not be such controversy now if local, Texas investors were included in the start we'll put them back to the plan instead of out of state or even out of country groups we believe in Texas history and the honor of those following that the Alamo was always of the most in mind near the planning stages the Senatap is an empty took a giant tombstone the honor of the brave men who died at the Alamo fighting for the land they loved them and they were willing to die for it the plans to remove the Senatap indicates the writers of this plan do not understand the great importance of it or they don't care this structure rests on the very ground they died on the battlefield the battlefield itself would never be just as it originally was and it doesn't have to be other historical battlefields around the country contain the horror markers and statues on geography it's not exactly the way it was at the time it's the story the narrative of the siege and the battle that matters the story that one and a half million people or more visitors here come to hear and to experience if story is already well enough it doesn't need to be rewritten to satisfy a few people biased and sometimes bigoted agenda the Alamo battle ground and the Senatap is no different than these others to rebuild the wall to its original height would have scared the chapel for instance and there is no point whatever of cutting down all the trees the Senatap even if it could be moved without damage to some remote spot would lose its connection to the Alamo would lose its meaning as a marker for men who defend who involved in the land we know is Texas leaving the Senatap where it is repaired in place made repairs to the Alamo that should have been done all along but dropped the huge money making agenda to reinvent the Alamo thank you thank you all for allowing us to speak and this is very dear to my heart because I'm a fifth generation Texan on my daddy's side and on my mother's there were the daughters of Republic of Texas but I'm here on behalf of myself speaking it's most important that we leave the Senatap where it is I researched it and I you know it's been there since 1940 it was it's a war memorial for the defenders of the Alamo and it is a monument that our federal government this is a hundred thousand dollars that they gave in the centennial for this monument and if we pay taxpayer dollars to disassemble it it will tear it up and it's only going to place it somewhere else in a prominent location the most prominent location is right where it is it used to stand right there which is for our defenders and I have a paper here that stated November the 15th 1939 it says the state board of control accepts the Alamo Senatap everybody in unison this Texas in the state control with the federal dollars and the city of San Antonio they accepted the Alamo Senatap and put it right where it was and I have a document that is an ordinance deed it's I-66 and it has a restriction on that deed it says that this property shall not be used shall not be used for anything else move that Senatap you cannot use that property for anything else and I want to read quickly this is from Copini the sculptor he says now let us look to the front and the face of the group that I call the spirit of sacrifice the top figure and symbolic of the heroic noble sublime sacrifice rising from the death of the flesh from the funeral pyre all of the bodies were burned by the victory after being killed in the furious uneven struggle for their adopted country's liberty and independence ever put up by a small band of the greatest heroes ever known in our history as they were not surprised but refused to surrender and as they dedicated themselves to such a fate so by their death the state of Texas may be born their soul ascends into heaven emanating from a man mailed burning flesh the spirit of sacrifice goes on and on to reach glorious immortality and it shall continue to flourish an inspiration patriotic devotion and a sense of gratifying pride to the present and future generations but we have to leave it there for him to be able to do that he is a shine to Texas and Texans do not know this is Tech and Flies, I go all over Texas my name is Honi Benson from Fredericksburg, Texas I appreciate that we actually have an open meeting this morning because the more transparency we have the better I'm here in favor of leaving this in attack where it is and I like to say the two people who went before me underscore everything they said completely agree with them we have to leave the spirit of those who died here, the defenders in honor and respect and that synatech needs to stand right where it is don't mess with the synatech don't mess with the Yalama we don't need to re-imagine Mr. Land Commissioner Dorchie Butch of the city council of San Antonio on the mayor Montneurver to recognize that this has been there there's nothing wrong with the way it is right now can we restore it, restore it in place don't mess with Texas don't mess with the synatech don't mess with Yalama this is Texas Freedom Force we are a nonprofit organization that works in the preservation of Texas history currently we are pushing about 10,500 members within our organization all across the state of Texas we do not deal with anything outside of Texas the synatech is an important issue we are working on right now with you guys we have been all over Texas, we have listened to Texans all over and they have spoken to us about the synatech and there is not one that we have spoken with that thinks that the synatech should be removed the synatech has put there for a place and it's put there for a reason and that's to honor those that fought here at the Yalama it's to honor those that you know it's put there so that that way whenever you are looking directly at the Yalama you would look over and see that I see more people that will walk up and look at those names on there because I'm actually locally here in San Antonio and they will sit there and read those names and I've had many conversations with them especially those from out of state as well and each one of them thinks that it's wrong that you be able to remove the synatech or move it to another location and I will apologize to you guys because I'm not as prepared as I should have been I've been in surgery and just got out of the hospital so I haven't been able to prepare everything for you but we do speak at the San Antonio City Council meetings every Wednesday and we have met on top of Mary Rowan Narnberg Trivino which I think Trivino shouldn't even be involved in this the man is responsible for removing the Travis Park finding it that's part of our Texas history no matter any way you look at it and now he's working on trying to remove the synatech we're at the Alamo the Alamo is sacred to all of us it's a heart-pated Texas this is where we all live and die with the freedom of Texas within us at least those of us that are born I'm a fifth generation Texan I can lean my heritage all the way back to being mayor my family is mostly Comanche on my mother's side and so although they didn't fight at the Alamo there was a sense of pride in that Alamo and I still I have no mis-wife and I know the Alamo Defenders descendants and they've done great work with this Alamo with working with the Alamo and trying to protect it and they've done a lot of good work with the synatech as well and so I just ask you guys that you please pay attention to what the people are saying I know that Mr. McDonald has said that there's a lot of positive feedback they're going to think that but whenever you're telling them what's true about the synatech and what's going on with the Alamo and the Rematch and the Alamo project then that's when Texans are starting to get angry about that and we're not trying to say that we're completely against the entire plan the restoration should be done but please the synatech where it is and make sure that you're honoring the Alamo instead of disrespecting it I'm Lane Woods from the Texas Free Reforms to speak with Bill today over the Alamo synatech I think it's quite laughable Mr. McDonald that you say you want to preserve the history of the Alamo you want to reimagine the Alamo that's not what we're here to do we're here to remember the Alamo you can reimagine it all you want but there's no need to move the synatech in order to do that it's an example of fiscal irresponsibility that you represent this is a decision that you're trying to make for all of Texas, not just San Antonio it's such a short-sighted thing to think that you're doing this for San Antonio and it's a slap in the face to true Texans and freedom loving Americans all over and the words that are inscribed on the bottom of the synatech I have an italics here it says they chose to never surrender nor retreat this was a spirit before Texas even existed they never just surrendered nor retreat so be ready for Texans now because that spirit is still alive and no matter what anyone does it will continue to live forever so this is probably my fourth time appearing for a council of any type and usually I'm going in so I come here today just to kind of not yell at you I do kind of respect this for a lot more than a city council currently I come here as a descendant of an Alamo defendant so he was here on the two separate days once maybe thirty-five he was a defendant he was the only party to reinforce the Alamo I stand again kind of in that same light in my letting it just to come here and defend the Alamo the synatech the synatech does not need to be removed it does not need to be moved to market street or market park where there are other statues it needs to stay exactly where it is but it does the names that are on there they do not have any physical remains left there are no grave zones there is no cemetery they were burned and we are told although however it's available whether it's an accurate that a San Fernando Cathedral has a box of remains the synatech is the epitome of respect for those men in the most intense fighting period and where those men ultimately were done away with to move it down the block or off of where it is is not only disrespectful it's heinous it's almost as if you're taking something that was put there for its original intent and disrespecting it by moving it out of spite I don't know what the obsession is with monument removal in this day and age across the nation and you see again Brandon stated that we have councilmen to review behind the removal of the Confederate monument you can argue all you want about the Confederacy but the Alamo is a different issue and that is unity or freedom and it endured a good 30 years before the Civil War everything an issue so to some people they want to make it a racist issue it is not racist this synatech is literally the most non-biased way of paying respects to the Confederacy probably they were unified to fight for their way of life their freedom and their independence and to move the synatech I think would detract from that message I think that it would only serve to forget this is the same message I've given the city council and I will continue to give them as well but it will only serve to forget to remember the Alamo it helps those who in this day and age or more move their cell phone and they are the walls of this sacred Alamo they would rather check something out on Facebook and they would read a placard on the middle of the street and that is a sad fact of life but by leaving the synatech out there and all this glory it might give this new generation a glimpse rather than what's on their social media thank you for your time I will return if we're allowed good morning my name is Lisa Prince of White I am the descendant of the men women and children who reside in Alamo Harrison that's from Abomeo it's Parza, Travis Jennings, Tramol all of them and I assure you that we as a group and I'm talking about thousands of people do not want to move the synatech there's only one descendant in yet another agenda that will stand and say move it again what these people said it's in the right location of the body separated from your soul right there and not at the front gate not down the street not anywhere other than right where it sits that's where we would like to stay and I assure you we have a change.org you can look it up save the synatech in less than two weeks we had 10,000 signatures saying don't move the synatech I had a lady from Eastland, Texas 10,000 names of people she wouldn't gather this is without any effort to stand outside the synatech talk to the visitors everyone on foot says why do they want to move it I said I don't have a good answer so it can look like the mission period when you still look at buildings around you honestly I don't know all I do know is that if you move that synatech you're throwing dirt in the face of the Alamo senders and it's slowly impressed by the monuments that longed on the site monuments would go from the battle fields in honor of the participants of the battles that were fought there and from the time I was three or four years old I just stand and look up at the faces on those monuments and it made a huge impression on me the Alamo is a fight of a battle field as well the synatech has a monument to those great senders of liberty and that battle field is a bold reminder that liberty is a cause that men of courage were willing to die for the senders of the Alamo don't have great fights their bodies were burned to ashes a tyrant who had abolished the constitution senters of the Alamo were unwilling to live under tyranny and were willing to give their very lives to the cause of the synatech and to all who visit the Alamo that brave Texas values liberty over their own lives would be a dip over to their sacrifice to remove that line in from the site on the battlefield on which they gave their lives through the future Texans who literally are the survivors I'm Luca Rivera born and raised in the state of Texas and I have the same feelings with the rest of the speakers that have said to begin with the battle for Texas the fight started with Alamo we want a liberty from Tadana and then Alamo came traveling to San Francisco bless those men who came in helping and forming the army that he did to defend Texas to make it a country and this sentence that represents for us, for Alamo as well as also Alamo something sacred and for it to be removed someplace else I've heard gossip and thought that it's going to be marked as square what's a marked as square what's a given party in the trunks that's not what it said in Texas it said that this is paper it said right now all the men that were piled up you don't know if there were some that were still leaving and Tadana had them all burned and all these bodies were destroyed probably leaves and for this sentence that's beautiful and disrespectful in such a manner I don't know what to say the words of the candidates the phrase where I'm speaking and where I'm sure a lot of other Texas people Texas behind us however you want to call us we're all together that's all I have to say thank you good morning my name is Don Matz I'm a concerned citizen thank you members of the board for hearing us and thank you members of the media for keeping this meeting open I'm a San Antonio resident as a lover of history I think number one on the agenda is to fix the Cromling Chapel San Antonio I would like to see the plaza kept open to traffic if people are concerned about the vibrations we'll stop the bus and stop the trucks but keep Alamo Street open to cars I'm all in favor of moving forward with the bar I'm very against any walls on the Alamo Plaza as a lover of nature I want to keep the trees the Alamo should be kept free and open I know there's charges for photographs and charges for guided tours but the Alamo should always be free and open to the public Finally, I believe we should keep the profile for each culture where it is I see no reason to move it don't move, but some can keep the spirit I want to do many organizations for you, listing all of them I attended the Alamo Society here in San Antonio in March at that particular meeting was for a while presenting an update on the master plan and including all that master plan was a pictorial of what was still the original Yorkshire Mayors' plan I have to assume what was said earlier during the board meeting that plan still affects minus the glass walls maybe I have yet to see anything and I'm here to tell you that as I approach age 79 I no longer have the luxury of being nice so I'll just be outspoken and say that is a garbage plan any plan that does not include rebuilding of the original walls is a garbage plan, period there are objections to that there are people who say it cannot be done they list the reasons I signed are not reasons but excuses Texas and Texans are noted for doing the impossible jobs that nobody else will consider doing we can rebuild those walls to this trust and to this endowment board is ignoring the visitors to the Alamo they are the customers of the Alamo Everpole has never been taken so they want to see rebuilding and yet they are totally ignored they're just a little people the plan the museum will have a fee to it and yet it will have the Phil Collins collection and Phil Collins specifically stated that he want his collection to be on display free to the public but to see this in the museum we will have to pay that fee but I feel my blood pressure coming up so I'll just quit with that do not proceed with a garbage plan that does not include rebuilding these Alamo walls, thank you my name is Don Dixon and I'm in a long time resident of San Antonio but I actually speak she was a daughter she helped run the Alamo for six to eighty years and I want to tell you there's nothing like the volunteer work that these ladies did for a hundred ten years free of charge for the state of Texas that Texas never had a better deal than when they had their daughters run the Alamo the Alamo that has a reason and my wife would have expressed this I'm sure very, very mistaken is the reimagining of the Alamo plan closing out the streets closing out the Alamo plaza cleaning up walls restricting people from this iconic facade that the daughters built up all those hundred years ago should not be done there's a lot of heroes other than my wife were concerned that they even went to the city in 1975 they got an agreement with Mayor Cochrane that no changes to Alamo Plaza would be made without the daughters that they knew how important this access was so closing out the streets is problematic you have to have visibility and access to a world like this you cannot close people off you have to have access and you have to have a lot of visibility taking the plaza back to Norton and taking out those black stones where people can handle the freedom is just wrong this part of the plan is what the people are very, very concerned about obviously moving this into that should be done at all possible other issues that's come up on the state level is individual responsibility in my opinion it was a mistake where the states take that out of the way for the daughters but they did so now if the state is going to be in charge there should be a straight line of responsibility for that that the state doing mixing private public is problematic this is a legislative issue but you're the ones that's representing the private part here but this is a problem and $106 million in two sessions is a lot of money $75 million that was from the rest of April so we need to develop that money it's going, it's expanding well and the album is protected for the citizens of people in Texas we really appreciate everyone coming this morning and all the interest and it's impressive and proud to hear Texans proud about the album thanks everybody for coming and I'm just coming to convince them we owe a real debt to the dollars for anything to get over here, here thanks everybody any other entertainer motion to adjourn? second, all in favor? all in favor? so the planning process continues it's based on the original master plan but that was broad concepts of doing several fundamental things includes closing the streets includes reclaiming the original mission footprint it includes building a new museum it includes restoring the church the long barrier, it includes building new exhibits and programming content and doing everything we can that's a classic experience for the public that's what the master plan calls for what does that look like? we're now in the process of designing what those things would look like at the next level what does the site look like how is the site configured more specifically all of those are details we're going to show them in the next round oh good I always make you use one of your what is your coaster what are you talking about they'll make you a bell cut it up the final master plan never had walls so there were early concepts of the master plan and glass structural walls those were never in the final master plan so that's kind of a bold so that's not a topic what are you talking about sure I definitely don't want the visual stuff to point people to what is different and you go to our website we actually have a website that summarizes the master plan the full documents, hundreds of pages but we have a website that more simply explains what's actually in the master plan and how does that way continue now we're into so we have a master plan now what does it look like to do that we did the master plan that did not deal with the history the historical content what's going to be in the museums what are the narratives that need to be told so what are all the stories you need to tell to fully tell the story of the Alamo of San Antonio it's a 300 year so we want to tell all that and it will focus on the 1836 events 1835 and 36 actually on the Texas Revolutionary Period it'll focus on that but that's the phase we're in now and then how does that actually organize on the site so where do we talk about the Texas Revolution the Battle of 1836 where do we talk about the mission about the domestic life that took place around here when it was a mission and all those times before and after the Battle of 1836 there was just people living here and it was the center of their city so all of that story has to get organized on the site so we're doing that now and what about what's the status of the center is that the senate path is their discussion is moving it, is it still in play is the senate path the master plan clearly called for the relocation of the senate path to reclaim the original mission footprint to the 1836 time period so every effort was made to to take that space where the original mission footprint to the 1836 time period it's a hundred years life yes and that's not something at this point that it's up for no there's everything there'll be a plan it'll be taken to public the citizens advisory committee will be engaged in that process there'll be public meetings and discussions there's been no final decisions on anything it's just still a process