 So, those that are interested, would y'all please come forward? And we have a sign up. Huh? Oh, we have a sign up. Please, come. Don't be shy. Are you going to say that out loud? Are you going to say that out loud? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. When you hear the chime, you have ten seconds. Hey! Are we going to ask all those who are interested? They have a sign issue. Please sign your names over here. And then you'll have ninety seconds. And when you hear the chime, you have ten seconds to wrap it up. Are we ready to listen? Ladies and gents. Okay. We want to take a look at that. We want to set the ground rules, so we want y'all to get ground rules. That'll let you know who's a good candidate if they follow directions. All right. So, let's listen and give them an utmost respect. We don't have to introduce you. You come up randomly and you introduce yourself. Let the people know you. Please, please speak. Put it. They don't think about it. They don't think about it. Yeah, you just said that. Number one. Down here to my right. Okay. Thank you for the use of this church. How y'all doing? I'm Derek Hillier from the San Antonio Friday Parliament. I'm the son that you raised for over 34 years in this community. I see further because of the shoulders I stand on. I can't take full credit for who I am today. I owe some of that to all of you in this room. I know I've leaned on a lot of people over the years. When I first got into the San Antonio Friday Parliament, part of my agenda was to support my family. And then I found a way to help others. That's why I've been in these schools, looking in the faces of many kids, and I've been to our programs over the years. I've made responses to many of your houses. And so maybe at your worst time, I was able to help you the best I could. And I want to thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the best I could. And I want to thank you for that opportunity. I shouldn't have to get up here and introduce myself. It should already be known through the works I've done. I know you can't get into heaven with my works alone. But the works I've done should speak for themselves. If I have to reiterate all that to you, then I wouldn't be your candidate. But I thank you. If you talk to your young people in your schools, they've seen me. I've been to many of your houses. I know this area. Four generations of my family have been here in the same community. I grew up right here. I've watched streets. The names of streets change. Bus lines change. Opportunity is displaced throughout a lot of communities. Talent is equal, distributed to everybody. But opportunity we have not had. That's what I look forward to bringing for our young people. To give them hope. As a youngster, I like to go to school. I want to see their faces light up when they go to school. Thank you for your time. Good morning. How's everybody doing? It's hard to follow that up. My name is Stephen Lucky. And I've lived the same address for 29 years here in District 2. San Antonio, Texas. I'm blessed to live here. I'd see a lot of disparities within the community. But I also see lots of opportunity. I was able to graduate from high school early. I was able to go to college. On a scholarship and play sports in my community. And I was able to now start up a non-profit promoting health and wellness within our community. In 2017, I ran for mayor. And I had a pretty robust platform. And looking back on what happened in 2017, maybe I should have done some things different. But my top five categories that I want to focus on are education, health, environment, cannabis, and transportation. I truly believe that education is key. No matter what your situation is in life, they say if you want to hide something, put it in a book. And I think that we need to improve our literacy within our communities. I've also heard the comment back there about policing in our communities and the criminal justice system. And how can we get more towards community policing and empowering our leaders within the community to help keep our bodies are our temple. We were able to come together here on this temple on a Saturday morning. And I think it's beautiful. I've heard people think this needs to happen more and more and more. We need to be coming together. But health is extremely important for us. We think about the health care system. We think about Medicare and Medicaid. My father right now is going through some health issues. And it's like, how can we take care of our bodies preventatively? Thank you for your time. My name is Steven. Good morning everyone. My name is Walter Perry. I just live right down the street. I grew up in this neighborhood. As a matter of fact, I'm looking at a lot of people who raised me and gave me bookers along the way. I first started my advocacy back in 2009 and started under the mentorship of Barbara Hawkins when we were doing the cross-point things and she was very influential in showing me the right direction on how to engage with just not with my own people, but the whole community. So I had a chance to kind of see and observe and be a part of what was going on in the community. I started working at SAGE for about two years. So I have an economic development degree and my job was going into the community working with all the businesses in the primary zone. I worked with Beverly Watch Davis when she was working with SAHA and she had the Choice Grant which helped a lot of the businesses re-establish themselves on the east side. I have a vision. And the vision for this east side includes every one of you. It includes shops. It includes walking space, livable space, clean streets, places in our parks. You know, our seniors can just go and read a book or play checkers. I love our seniors. And I'm going to start by fighting for them and fighting for our kids. I see Salil in the south of the bayans in the back. She has a boardroom project which works with young, Hispanic and black kids on being professional. I have a pseudo-program which I've been working on for the last five years. And we have engaged these kids. And I want to be the candidate because we have some unfinished business. We're going to talk about our grandmother's inheritance. And so that's what's going to happen right now. And I need you guys right now. Let's go get our inheritance. SAHA and district 2 now. My name is Royce Perry. I'm Chris Dawkins. I have a cane here because I just had hip replacement surgery. But most of you, I believe here, know me. I've been in the community for some time. Lately I've been working at Lakeside. The reason that I'm running is to represent you. What's been done here today I think is the most important thing that we can do. We want to be able to hear from you. That is the most important thing to me. Is to be able to have you be the one who is I'm representing. Been at Lakeside for about four years. We've done, I think, very well. We've got $2.3 million in drainage. We've got money for commercial. I think things are very well. But I also believe that there's some things that need to be done. Those things that need to be done are the crime in our community. I think we really need to address that. We cannot do low income housing allowing with the crime being the way that it is. So what I'm asking you for is your support for the appointment. I will be the one who will run and I just ask for your support. Thank you. I'm going to break stuff. Unless frankly I probably will not run on the off chance that we don't have aggressive community engagement from whoever is going to be the interim and then the candidate that looks like our strongest candidate will represent district 2 I want them to know who I am because I'm engaged and it blows my mind that I'm engaged on a regular and I can't move the needle one bit. We're lagged behind in D2. Violent crime from the east side goes to the northeast side. That's the migratory pattern. I'm concerned about my entire community. I don't care who represents us but you better represent us. All of us. So on the eve of the third number one, number two, I don't like the idea that city council walks up to me afterwards and says to make sure look people that's exactly what the mayor said to me. The mayor cannot dictate what goes on in D2. Bring your best to the table and let's get it done. Thank you. With respect to this my name is Denise with the others homeless. I live in district 2. I live in Government Hill. I've lived and my family have been a part of district 2 for over 30 years. Some of you might know my husband he's Dr. Mark Homer at southeast animal hospital so we live and we work in the community. It's not just district 2. It's district 1, 2 and 3. We need to work together. We need to know what's happening in district 1 and what will affect us. Our property taxes are a huge issue. It's coming deeper into the east side and that causes homelessness because people are removed forcibly because they're tenants and they're landlord selling properties to developers. Developers come and knock on homes and the homeless move because they're offering wonderful opportunities but then they move out they can't hire a home for 150 out of the mountains at the time they move out of their home to another location for homeless in here or they're back starting all over. The one thing about my situation and my community is that I'm involved. I don't go around showing my finances in the back. Yesterday I was in the senior center I'm a normal community center and we had a wonderful opportunity to visit with the seniors who celebrate Christmas with them. I'm a former teacher I know education is important I'm a little nervous right now but I have a lot to offer I'm an artist as well I want to encourage the young people to take advantage of their talent so I really want to shine on every possible way from the young to the old and I just hope you consider me because I am part of the family. I'm Martinez and I've been a resident of District 2 for 56 years I built my business in District 2 621 Chester where I lived and I built a building there and now it's a distillery it's an advertising company my billboard company anyway my main concern for running and I've always been a public servant by the way I didn't get my GED until I was 65 years old I have the honor of being on the Alamo Community College District for 6 years and liking by District 2 individuals it was a at large position and the ironic thing was I didn't have a high school education when I was elected and I was a swing boat the trustee of the board and I was the one that delivered the boat for the Alamo College and so my concern is not having a hospital in our district a large district without a hospital we have to go to the north side or the south side or downtown no emergency facilities to take care of our elderly people so I'm not a politician I try to do the right things I'm color blind everybody matters to me life is a life and so I'm a I'm a church servant thanks so much thank you good morning everyone my name is Lester Bryant I appreciate the opportunity for you today I was born and raised on the east side I graduated from Sam Houston I lived in Washington DC for about 20 years after high school I lived in Atlanta for 14 and one thing I can tell you is that there are east sides all over this country and what I've seen working in those cities is something that Sister Gabrielle mentioned is that we have to work together and we have to have a vision we have to have a strategy since I've been back in San Antonio since 2008 but I haven't a child there also I was involved in the east side Promise neighborhood planning and then to help administer the plan also I've served as our vice chair of the VA board and also with city council because several of you mentioned it talked about budget I have budget experience in the corporate world also with VA and also on the national board and one thing that we haven't really touched on today is that in order for us as a community to move the agenda we have to be able to build a consensus and first we have to build a consensus among ourselves and then we have to be able to build getting a consensus from city council and I have those skills in the private world and also the corporate world so thank you very much good morning y'all my name is Geron Head some of you may know me, some of you may not know me I am also the zoning commissioner for district 2 at this moment I am taking this into consideration I am a product of the east side I went to what used to be I am still here, Gates Elementary Rodney Junior High School and a product of Sam Houston High School my family has been here I know at least since 1952 in San Antonio I am the fourth generation of the east side as I went off to college I left the east side served in the military and when I returned back 20 years later I was disappointed to see that the east side still looked like it did when I left 20 years ago that told me that we had leadership that was not doing what needed to be done to keep us updated with north side and south side my opinion the east side has been used as a dumping ground for projects that they don't want on the north side or on the north north west side what we need to do is have someone in office that can work with everyone within district 2 not just Mankey Park or Government Hill but Lakeside, Eastwood and Brighton all of them together to work together in my name thank you good evening everybody my name is Rose Hill and I'm born and raised here on the east side and I've been engaged with the east side for 25 years I'm the co-founder of 501c called Parents on Watch advocating children's rights in SAISD I started out when I was 22 years old here on the east side for children that unfortunately had problems in the school districts and we would mediate between the parents and the superintendent and it was a very successful program that ended and I retired from that since then I've been engaged on the south side we brought in $4.3 million to the Paul Pytel park I established that for the privileged children that could not afford to play baseball or anything and I was certain on the SAISD council PTA and I was on there for almost 15 years since then this is my second term I'm happy to say that I was fortunate with Senator Menendez and our previous councilmen are shutting down the Accent Recycling Plant there on Sinking Street that created a lot of rats infestation hazardous health to the people and the seniors and we were able to successfully close that down I feel like I've been engaged with all the neighborhood associations we all work together we have coffee once a month working together and knowing the community and knowing the issues is important because if you don't know the issues and you don't know other things that happen in different communities you can't be successful thank you thank you for being here spending your Saturday mornings you have heard the people speak my question to you is is there any reason that we can ask specific questions to our candidates if all in favor just raise your hand alright we're on a short window so we've got to set something can we get the candidates for your name I would say sign that sheet sign that sheet candidates make sure you sign on the sign sheet we have a good email a good phone number we set for the December 29 put that on your camera that's on the time we have December 24 December 29 we'll have a meeting the candidates that you can ask specific target questions if you sign in on the sign sheet email what is it read questions or whatever what time we don't have a time yet that's why you need to be on the email and we'll get it out to you like we did this time but I want to appreciate each and every one of you I'll give you a second Mr. Gordon appreciate each and every one of you and your time hopefully you've learned a lot today you saw the candidates we will summarize what we went through today we will get into council to make sure that they know what we've come up with today Mr. Gordon there are some people who didn't sign in please sign in please make sure that you put your name address just name phone them an email on the sign sheet Linda Popinopoulos has one here and I think there's still one in the front we need that so for the 29 we're going to send emails to everybody with the time and the place and then we will also select people to sit on the panel to ask some questions and also you can email back some of the critical questions that you may want to be addressed but again I want to thank each and every one of you I appreciate you hopefully I've demonstrated a level of leadership here and that we can stay together