 Good evening. My name is Jesse Ramos. I'm a cops leader cops Metro leader with st. Timothy. I'll be one of your co-chairs And I'm Gloria Mota. I'm a leader with st. Leo's cops Metro And I will be one of the co-chairs tonight first of all having the observed certain protocols tonight leaders as You know cops Metro is non-partisan That means we will not endorse a candidate We endorse our community our families and the issues affecting our families There will be no clapping or booing We have a timekeeper. We asked that the allotted time be respected This is a non-partisan assembly Therefore Individually, we will not walk or talk with the candidates This is a public meeting When the session is over We ask that everyone stays in their place Until each candidate is escorted to the door We ask that the cops Metro leaders Stay for an evaluation of the meeting afterwards Candidates I'm going to repeat this. I already mentioned it before Please refrain from political campaigning and attacking your opponents. We have a timekeeper We asked that you respect the time allotted We will ask a series of questions After each question each candidate will have four minutes to answer After each of the series of questions, we will you will have four minutes We will ask additional questions only if time permits Again, we remind you that this is not a town hall meeting This is a non-partisan assembly Hasta que las escoltas previamente asignadas Acompañarán a cada candidato hacia la puerta Por favor les pedimos a los líderes quedarse a la evaluación Los candidatos por favor abstenerse de hacer campaña política Y atacar a sus oponentes Tenemos quien tome el tiempo les pedimos que respeten el tiempo asignado Haremos una serie de preguntas Después de cada pregunta los candidatos tendrán cuatro minutos para responder Haremos preguntas adicionales si el tiempo nos lo permite Nuevamente les recordamos que esta asamblea No es partidista Gracias We have a cops metro. We'd like to welcome each and every one of you and If you all were ever in a meeting with cops metro, you'll know that we're very time oriented So how many of you want to get out of here in an hour and ten minutes? That's the only time you're gonna be allowed to clap go ahead Bienvenidos a todos. Gracias. We will have now the opening prayer led by father Ricardo Guerra Let us take just a few moments of silence that we might place ourselves in the presence of our guard Tomemos un momento así de silencio para Ponernos en la presencia de nuestro Dios. Oh Lord we gather this evening as a community as we work and strive for the betterment of our families and Communities bless us with your wisdom bless us with your prudence that together United we may continue Bringing your love and your grace upon all of us Señor Dios te pedimos que nos acompañes en esta tarde con tu Espíritu que nos concedas pues esta paciencia y y prudencia y sabiduría Para que juntos trabajemos trabajemos para nuestra comunidad y el bien de nuestra comunidad al mismo tiempo te suplicamos que nos concedas paciencia y sabiduría Especialmente sobre la tragedia que estamos viviendo en esos momentos que ocurrió esta tarde en Boston para ellos quienes fallecieron señor que los tengas en tu presencia y Que descansen ellos que están heridos que pronto les conceda su salud Lord we ask that you also gratis grace and strength and wisdom over the experience that we are living at this moment from Boston For those who have died may they be in your presence for all of eternity at peace for those that are wounded that you may grant them health Father we ask that you bless us as we gather this evening. Señor bendicenos al reunir nos en esta tarde Amen At this time we'll have roll call miss Natalia tovar Good evening My name is Natalia Soriano tovar and I am a core leader here with st. Timothy's cops Metro Let's see who's here tonight. We know st. Timothy's here This is one of those levels here conception parchment St. Leo's Our lady of what a look for her lotus Jesus Mission Concepción Sacred Heart City First Unitarian Universalist our Lady of Good Council St. Francis of Assisi ISD school fails. Who else did we miss everybody? Oh Santa Fonso Anybody else st. Patrick's immaculate? St. Stephens Welcome everybody Cops Metro Alliance have a long history of working with elected officials of our city Tonight. We're here to continue that relationship with district five candidates We're here to discuss the issues that affect our families We're here to discuss with you and to ask you of your commitment to work with us to maintain the success We are we have already accomplished and to build on that in the past We have worked tirelessly to put project quest in place To maintain the after-school program at an affordable cost to our parents This are just a couple of examples of what cops Metro leaders have done Currently, we're working to have access to healthy and clean parks to maintain safe neighborhoods curtail vandalism Procure good lighting safe sidewalks and repair potholes organized parents around the children's education, etc This assembly is to begin a conversation with our elected officials I am father Mike DeGerolli, and I am pastor here at st. Timothy's, and I'd like to say thank you for joining us in this meeting Today we have a special guest and I'm going to introduce my name I'm Mike DeGerolli and I'm pastor here at St. Timothy's and I'd like to introduce my name Mike DeGerolli, my name is Mike DeGerolli and I'm pastor here at St. Timothy's and I'd like to introduce Mike DeGerolli and I am pastor here at St. Timothy's and I'd like to also introduce our co-moderator for this evening, Father Walter DeHeden from Sacred Heart Parish. Would you welcome Father Walter. Candidates, we're gonna give you each one minute to introduce yourself. We have you seated in alphabetical order so we'll begin with Ricardo Briones. You have one minute to introduce yourself. Can you hear me? My name's Ricardo Briones. I'm an attorney. I'm a lifelong resident of District 5. I grew up right on Roosevelt Street right across from Roosevelt Park and I went to St. Cecilia's, Central Catholic, UTSA and my bachelor's in finance at UTSA and I'm currently an attorney. I got my law degree at St. Mary's University. The whole time I've lived in District 5, I'm 34 years old. I'm very passionate and I'm very engaged with the community. I wanna thank you all for showing up and I know it's a very important thing and this is just a beautiful thing to see everybody so engaged in the political process so thank you for having me. Thank you, Mr. Bionas. Please introduce yourself, Mr. Cardenas. Each candidate may introduce themselves. Buenas noches. Buenas noches. Soy Richard Cardenas y tengo que ser Richard Cardenas porque cuando jugué a la escuela Ruiz, los americanos me quitaron Ricardo y todos me conocen como Richard Cardenas. Bueno, yo soy un residente del Distrito por 52 años. We are Ruiz, Cooper y Gradela Nier, en 79. Atendí los colegios de Community College aquí en San Antonio. Me casé con una Harlandale Indian. Mi esposa Ana, estamos casados por 30 años y nos casamos en La Parroquia de St. Leo's con la Tava Father Yannish y Father Thielenay. Tenemos dos hijos Ricardo Antonio y Andrea María. Soy un negociante pequeño. Tengo el Avis de Carl Rental. No soy un vendedor de Carlos Viejos. Tengo una agencia de renta. Y estoy aquí porque... Thank you, Mr. Cardenas. Good evening. My name is John Carlos Garcia. I'm a small business owner. I'm 34 years old. I opened an insurance agency at the age of 22. Before that I taught at Southside High School in their music program for four years. I'm a natural leader. I ran in 04. I've been very active in this community for the past several years from volunteering to engaging other people, to bring people together, to work together as a community. I believe I'm the person for this job because I can motivate people and bring their strengths out of them and bring us all together to work towards a better future for the entire District 5. Not just part of District 5, but the entire District 5. I'm here to tell you about myself. I'm a father. I've got two children. I'm very concerned about their future. I'm also a son. And I'm concerned about our parents. I'm concerned about our senior centers. I'm concerned about all the needs that we need to address in order to become the best possible community that we can. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Hola, buenas tardes. Me llamo Shirley Gonzales. Tengo 40 años. Mi familia tiene 52 años, aquí en el negocio de Bill's Pond and Jolrate. Mi mamá nació en México y vino a San Antonio cuando ella tenía 19 años. Y aquí estamos siempre. Mi papá también nació en La Vaca Street. Aquí no muy lejos de aquí. Y aquí está mi familia en San Antonio por mucho tiempo. My name is Shirley Gonzales. I'm 40 years old. I went to St. Mary's University. I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. My family has owned Bill's Pond Shop here on the west side for 52 years. And we're very proud of this community and the community that we've been able to serve. I'm a long-distance triathlete. I do Ironman triathlons. I'm a member of Leadership San Antonio and currently a member of Leadership SAISD, which is a group of independent people getting together to work with SAI schools. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. My name is David Medina. I'm your current city councilman here for District 5. And I'm here tonight talking to you because I wanted to be able to come back and share with you the reason why I'm running for reelection for District 5. Having grown up in the district, being born and raised here and been involved in my community at a very young age, volunteering at my church, being involved in different ministries there at the church, just naturally, as I became of age, I decided to get involved in the public service in terms of politics. And going and working at City Hall, I applied and got hired in the mayor's office, also worked in District 5 for councilwoman Patty Radle when she was our representative. In addition to that, I'm the former president of Palm Heights Neighborhood Association and also very active with a lot of the youth recreational organizations here in our community. You gave me the opportunity to be elected four years ago and to serve the district. And I believe that we've done a solid job in the sense that we've been able to respond to our constituency and go out there and work to meet the needs of our community. But it's an everyday battle, everyday work. I'm here standing before you because I know with the experience I have in office, moving forward, we can continue the progress. Thank you, Mr. Medina. Thank you. Good evening, my name is Frank Ramirez. This is my neighborhood. I grew up down the street on 19th Street. I attended Lowell Middle School, went to Lanier High School, eventually graduated from John F. Kennedy, well there goes my name, John F. Kennedy High School. I am a living, breathing story of failure and redemption. I have been in the pitfalls of life and I pulled myself out and have made a name for myself, getting my bachelor's degree, master's degree, working on my dissertation for my PhD in education. That is the focal point of my movement is to bring the importance of education back to our community and to bring redemption back to our community. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ramirez. Thank you, all of the candidates. In the interest of time, I'm going to read the seven questions that you will respond to. You will only have four minutes, however, so please be careful and succinct in how you respond to these questions. I'm going to ask seven questions. The first question is about public security. We have built a relationship with SAPD Chief McManus around safety issues that affect our neighborhood. What are your plans to improve public safety? The second question deals with desarrollo economico. We are interested with what your vision is for economic development in District 5. Will you commit to include COPS Metro leaders in your economic development plan to improve our neighborhood? Question number three, se trata de los parques. Are you willing to make all our district parks, especially Father Benavides Park right here in front, adequate for use by our communities and make them a priority for improvements? How? Where do you see potential sources of funding for our parks? Question number four, se trata de organizar en las escuelas. We have been working with educators, businesses, and city officials and community leaders to put together a strategy to organize in schools, to bring parental engagement, especially around the Lanier High School cluster. Can we count on your support to bring businesses, foundations around the table to obtain funding to bring this project to fruition? I might add on the issue of the parks, as many of you know, we have been working with Councilman Medina, Councilman Medina. We know we all have busy schedules and sometimes it's difficult to attend meetings, but I will ask each and every candidate if you are committed to attend every council meeting. And if you cannot attend, will you call one of the COPS Metro leaders from District Five so we can represent, we can be present and report to you. We will re-ask this question later on. We, the issue about the parks, we do thank you Councilman Medina for the monies that you are seeking for Benevitas Park and the master plan, but a lot needs to be done. COPS Metro is reciprocal. We respond when public officials work with us, but all of you candidates, please, please know that the way COPS Metro operates is that we will hold you accountable. Right, COPS Metro? We will watch what you do. Please don't just say words, we want action. Now we'll go back to the questions. Back to question number five, acerca de la climata session. This is about weatherization. We've been working with CPS Energy to make the weatherization program successful for the past few years. Unfortunately, we have many families that don't qualify for weatherization because their homes are in need of repair. Would you commit to support quarterly weatherization fairs in district five where families can apply and to find resources to rehab or repair homes so they can qualify for this benefit? Question number six about code compliance and zoning. We have organized around code compliance and city zoning issues, and as a result in the past year, four drug houses have been demolished. One zoning change has been made and over 40 vacant lots have been cleaned up. How are you thinking that you can work with us to develop our communities? And the final question acerca de los programas de nutrición para los ancianos. In the past two years, there have been six senior programs closed. St. Stephen, San O'Fonso, St. Agnes, St. Jude, Christ the King, San Juan de los Lagos. Will you commit to giving enough support from the cities to the churches that are willing to continue the senior programs? Father Walter, do you have anything to add? Okay, thank you. Now we will ask each candidate. You have four minutes starting in alphabetical order. Mr. Briones. I'm sorry, pardon me. In regards to the first question regarding public safety, I think what I do want to do is, I think safety is an important issue. Everyone should be safe in District Five. If you don't feel safe, that it equals a lack of economic development, a lack of neighborhoods, a lack of people talking to each other. And I think that's important. We need to have walkable, livable neighborhoods. What I wanna do is support an 18-wheel mobile SAPD substation that will be planted at neighborhood locations monthly to go ahead and increase safety, increase public awareness of safety issues. In addition to that, I would like to increase foot and bike patrol and that 18-wheel mobile SAPD can be the hub for those foot and bike patrols to increase safety, to get sidewalks better welded. I think that's an important issue. The second thing, economic development in District Five. What we do have to do is come up with a global business strategy that targets opportunities, potential, work around Port S.A. San Antonio, work around the Robert B. Green Center, and bring in those types of businesses as well as work with COPS Metro to know what opportunities are available to small businesses. I wanna host monthly small business lunches where small businesses can get information. They'll know what tax incentives are available for them, what sort of grants are available for them, as well as what sort of information's out there. I am committed to attend every city council meeting. I think a failure to attend one meeting is a failure to you all. I think that's what you sign up for. And if I'm not able to attend, I will have COPS Metro attend for me. I think they're a great organization. Now, in regards to the linear cluster, I'm sorry, the parks, I think it's important to find funding. I think children, public spaces with children in the elderly, it's important to get them out there. It's important to be active. I will look at funding. We have to think outside the box. We can look at county funding. We can look at state funding. We can look at federal funding, but we have to work with partnerships. We have to work with other people that are invested and that other districts that overlap with us. So I think that's extremely important. And what we can also do is maybe look at the private sector. Talk to Port San Antonio and see, look, how can you give us opportunities to increase our parks? The fourth thing is the linear cluster and the weatherization, I'm sorry, the linear funding. Yes, I think it's important to bring businesses and foundations around the table to obtain funding to bring that product. I think we need to increase our relationships. And I will personally increase relationships with SAISD and Edward ISD. And we need to go ahead and get our kids in school. And what we'll do is work with businesses, foundations, and see what they can offer us and see what's available to it. But we need to have everybody on the table and we need to adapt the strategy to get there. Now, the weatherization program, I want to have local monthly energy summits where we actually go to the neighborhoods and let you know what's available for you. And we can get CPS on board, SAISD on board, solar companies. I think it's important to not just have a summit because a lot of people have problems with transportation but to bring them to the churches. We need to come out to you. Also, the code compliant and city issues, I think that's a huge issue. I would love to work with you to develop the community. What we need to do is look at the opportunities, look at the potential and look at our assets. I think District 5 is rich in a lot of potentials and by working together with that, I think we can bring it. The last thing, yes, we do need to bring funding to the churches that are continued, the senior programs. I think the seniors are the most important asset for District 5 and we need to make sure they have their nutrition. We need to make sure they have socialization. Thank you very much for your time. Just a second. I have one question that is related to number five. When we talk about the weatherization, we raise the point that many people cannot qualify because their houses are not to standard. So what would you do to help to fix the houses, repair the houses, rehab the houses so that they also would qualify for the weatherization program? You get one minute to respond to this. That's a great question, Father. What we need to do is definitely work with Habitat for Humanities, work with community organizations to see where is the most need and see how we can best approach that need. We need to work also with the private sector to see how we can repair these houses and bring them up to code so they can take full advantage of the weatherization. And I think definitely, you know, when you have CPS and sales rate increases based on, you know, people with fixed income, you do need to take that into account and looking at any rate increases in the future that I need to advocate for District Five and say, look, it's one of the poorest districts. We can't afford, you know, $3, an extra three or $4 every month because that usually goes to food or that usually goes to gas. So I think we need to be aware of all that stuff and I hope that answers your question, Father. Thank you. Mr. Cardinos. Well, let me start by saying I am committed to meet all the meetings in First City Council. I'm also committed to invite one of the cotton metros persons to be a liaison to my staff and actually be on board in meetings with me. So I will commit that to this organization. I also commit for the first question, working with Chief McManus and Public Safety. I'd like to, one of the things I'd like to do is put a grant right around my staff so we can go out after ATF, DEA grants that are out there. I wanna be proactive in police community patrols. I wanna take officers out of the cars and into our neighborhoods so we can grow those relationships with the residents. The question number two, on economic development. I wanna establish master plans throughout the district. With a master plan, what that causes is the residents to be accountable and tell us what they wanna see in their area. When you develop a master plan, it's a step by step, one, two, three, four, and going down the road as to what you wanna see and going down the road as to what you can accomplish. It's not gonna happen overnight, but if you have a master plan, you can always modify it and you can add to it. But without a plan, you cannot get investors to come in, you cannot get people that are interested. But if you have a master plan, where you wanna start and where you're going, you can definitely accomplish much in the economic development side for the district. Question number three, parks funding. I think that we should extend the venue tax that my eight car agency pays 5% to the city for other parks and extend that tax and use it for the inner city parks, for municipal parks, not just for special funding and sport program, but for the city parks that are needed. That's 5% of the tax from there. I think as far as education and the linear cluster, when I was with the Texas Restaurant Association, we helped convert home economics into culinary arts. So I think it's very important to have a private public venture with the school districts. Not only in the air, Harlandale, Edgewood, and bring everybody to the table so we can develop those programs that are needed for the jobs of the future. Not only here in San Antonio, but just south in the economic impact of the Eagle Forge Shell. Along with that, we also identify small businesses that can participate in those projects and put them in the small business procurement program with major corporations so they can also take part of those things. CPS Energy. Yes, a lot of homes here are in distress. I think we should revitalize the old San Antonio Development Agency program where we went in and rehab neighborhoods by bringing in new houses, purchasing the property, building a new house, a couple of streets down just like they did in Colonia Santa Cruz. My parents benefited from that and I think it was very successful. I think we need to look at that program again and also the same time look at programs to just do rehabs for those areas, especially low income areas. And we need to look at private public funding for that. As far as the zoning and code compliance, yes. I understand that there is a tremendous need for going out and holding absentee landlords accountable, holding vacant lots, trimmed and up kept and making sure that all those code compliance violations don't get ignored, but we get accountability from those landowners. Then the seventh on the Christ the King, the senior for the funding, you bet. The seniors nos dieron mucho los ancianos. Los que están los programes ahorita, muchos eran mis héroes cuando estaba creciendo. Y yo les do el apoyo looking at second servings, the Hope for Harvest and other organizations that are out there to extend those programs to bring you meals and social activities into your neighborhoods. I have just a question is the points that you mentioned, especially like number six, how would you work with cops and Metro to do the things that you, the ideas that you have so that we can work together on those programs? You have one minute. On the code compliance one, Father? Yes, number six, especially number six. But in general. Well, number one, I would have weekly staff meetings with code compliance. And also, I said about inviting somebody from cops Metro to come here. You are the eyes and ears. You're the taxpayers. You're the ones that hold us accountable. And that's what has been missing is the accountability. I'm here so you can hold me accountable. I'm here to serve you. It is not I, but we in the district that can accomplish those things. And I can promise you that I will be there and I will cops Metro has been a rock of this neighborhood fighting for the needs of the poor for many years. And there's no way that I'm turning my back on you because I'm here for the community. Yo soy de aquí. I'm running because I know that I can make a difference and build what we need within the district to bring district five from the poorest to the best place to raise a family. Thank you. All these areas of concern really revolve around one thing in my opinion. And that's organization. We have to be organized and mobilized. We got to know our neighbors. That's how we're gonna work with the San Antonio Police Department and our chief. We've got to get to know each other and not be afraid each other. We've got to knock down walls. We have to build neighborhood associations. And let me be clear, neighborhood associations, not homeowners associations where we can come and address every single one of these issues that's listed here. That's how we get to know each other. We get to know each other. Crime will then start to fall because we start looking out for each other. There's a place where we can develop neighborhood watch programs. We can develop and strengthen membership and youth organizations like Boy Scouts or the CIO. We can use these things as tools. And economic development will follow from that because if there's safety, more businesses will wanna be there. If there's better infrastructure, if we can produce more people at the polls, the city will have to not ignore us. We only got 5% of this last bond. We're 10% of the city. We should demand more of that money. We need to fight for it. We need to come together and get what we deserve as a community to make us stronger so that we can have more money for our parks. If we had more of that bond money, we wouldn't be fighting so fiercely for every little penny of it. We could develop that money and get it to all the parks that are needed, especially the parks on the west side, where the kids need to have a place to go and they need to be supervised. I can jump to another question here because that leads us into developing program to engage our parents. A few leaders cannot do it by themselves. So we can't just focus on the leaders that are currently doing their job and going beyond to help raise all these children from coaches to sponsors. We've gotta create more of those leaders amongst us. And we do that by reaching out to people. District 5 has over 60,000 formerly incarcerated people. A lot of those people wanna change their ways. They wanna become part of their community. We need to reach our hands out to them and tell them you are part of us. We welcome you. We welcome you to change your life and become stronger so that we don't have to worry about having to be armed in our local businesses around the street. Here on, just down the way, I spoke with the business owner, Mr. Correa, and every day he sees it. These are the things that we need to address on a regular basis. And as far as CPS and the weatherization, I think Mr. Cardenas' idea is wonderful. I think we need to look for grants in all sorts of areas. From safety to the weatherization, we've gotta find them. The money's out there, programs are there. And if we're organized, we're gonna find that money. We, together, as a community, can come together, no matter how we say it. We need to get organized. We need to start creating big problems. And a big problem I wanna have is two years from now, when we have this forum, we're gonna need an auditorium because so many people are interested. We've gotta get people motivated. Code compliance, that also comes back to business. If we're not enforcing code compliance and holding the homeowners liable for their properties and leaving them the way they are, they become ice horse, businesses do not wanna come in. They don't wanna invest there if they're not gonna get a good return on their investment. So we must enforce them. And we must also look for ways to help families who can't afford to bring their homes up to code going back to the grants. We've gotta work together to solve all these problems together. And definitely the senior centers. The senior centers must be reopened. We must find that money. There can't be a lot of money spent at one senior center where we're least mobile. This community is the least mobile. We've got to have senior centers that are close in proximity and food must be prepared on site. Our seniors built our community and it's time that they get the respect that they deserve. Thank you. Mr. Garcia, you expressed yourself very well in what you'd like to see do, but many of the programs will require funding. And I'd like you to address that question. How are you gonna find the funding to do the ideas that you suggested one minute? The funding can be taken from a lot of places such as our CPS. We need to find exactly where CPS's money's going. That we need to be transparent on that. We need to get a lot of that and we can save money in for the weatherizations. These things happen over time. They're not gonna happen overnight. They're not gonna happen probably within a year. We've gotta look long term in our budget goals to develop these things. Re-evaluating where exactly the money has gone. In meeting with our firefighters association and our police officers association and listening to them, they tell us that there's places where they could save us millions of dollars if we listened directly to them. With it a lot of times that their concerns go, get brushed aside in favor of what city staff tells them that they need. So these things are places that where we can find funds. Thank you. Regarding question number one, in the business community we have monthly meetings with the police department and they're surrounding different topics. They could be fraud. There's also theft. We have gang discussions where the police meet with us and tell us what the problems are. And we could do something very similar in the business community, perhaps with COPS Metro and some of the other organizations. We can agree to go to their site and they can show us all the new technologies they have that can help law enforcement. And by having small community groups go to them and also I realize transportation is an issue but with the organization we can get everybody over there. And at the same time have people then meet here and explain some of the new policing technologies that they have so we can be informed both ways. I also want to say that I will always commit to attend every meeting. In my 20 years of employment I've never missed a day of work that was unscheduled. I've never been sick. Not one day in the last 20 years. And I know many of you will agree and can say that same thing. So I commit to every meeting and I commit to having a representative of COPS or you'll have plenty notice if I'm not able to attend. Regarding question number two for economic development. When Patty Rado was a council woman she had organized these small business summits. And as a result of those small business summits was what helped inspire and create the WDC. And I would like to get back to that kind of summits where small businesses are supported. And in district five we have businesses that are 70 years old, 100 years old, 62 years old. Many of you have that same experience. And our small businesses need to be supported so they can grow to the next level, hire more people in the area, train more people in the area. And that's my plan for improving economic development. Regarding parks, especially Benavides Park the needs are obvious but most importantly and many of our parks around the district don't have water fountains. And this is a big concern of mine. There's no shelter and shade and there's no water fountains. And when kids are playing hard it's 100 degrees when we're all enjoying the outdoors we need to have a source for water. And I hope we can work with SAWS to put water fountains at every park in our district. Regarding question number five in my team right now in leadership SAISD I'm on a group that has to do with community involvement. And one of the things that I'm specifically fighting for has to do with this corridor, this linear cluster. And I was hoping that my vision is that linear the FOIA, the San Antonio Notatorium and the Culture Arts Center could work together to create more programming because any given day of the week you can go to linear you can see that there's people active kids are training, people are walking and it's a great anyway people are ready there if we could have more programming that would benefit our district greatly. And I'm working that right now with my leadership SAISD team. Regarding weatherization and the quality of our homes I think that this weatherization can be complicated and I think it's very important that we as council people reach out individually to people that are eligible especially regarding some foundation problems that I know many of our residents have. It's really gonna require many different groups of people working together and I would like to see more individual effort not just forums and summits because it can be overwhelming but even going door to door telling people hey we've got this program and you're eligible would you like to take advantage? Regarding question number six regarding code compliance I think it's very important that COPS Metro get together because you are the members of the community they're gonna get together to remind us whenever code compliance when there's issues in our neighborhood that work with code compliance and I hope to have a very strong staff regarding code compliance. Regarding the senior programs food security is the most important. I just a minute. I just wanna Ms. Gonzalez I just wanna ask the same question you have good ideas obviously but I like to see how you're gonna fund all the ideas that you have because it's nice to talk about we're gonna do this and that but the funding for question three and four and five where is the money gonna come from? One minute. Regarding the parks it would come from corporate sponsors similar to what they did at Harburger Park when they got lots of corporate funding together to improve the park $500,000 I think they raised in one day so I hope that we can have that kind of partnership in our district. Also regarding and I think it does need to come from corporate sponsors since we are always working with unlimited funds and many of the small businesses in our community are very willing to help and to participate they often just have never been asked would you like to sponsor a park would you like to sponsor shelter and it has to come from the community as well as from the city but community small businesses I think can help and also large corporations. I know that companies like Boeing have given backpacks to some of the schools maybe some of that money that they invest in stuff like backpacks could also be used for human capital so that the people can be more engaged in our neighborhoods. Thank you. Well as far as public safety I know I've been out to a couple of the meetings they have here at the hall and joined by Chief McManus working with you and Block walking here in the neighborhood. We've been making some progress in that regard working with our safe officers and doing more bike patrolling here in the community and I'm wholeheartedly committed to make sure that we continue in those efforts but it's also gonna take taking a look at the zoning on certain properties here in the community. I know recently we had a zoning request request that had come before council to be able to maintain a property and having multiple units at one location it really didn't fit the zoning for the neighborhood and we had a lot of complaints from the neighbors and a lot of calls to the police department at this particular property. I made a recommendation to deny that zoning request it was denied and the community since then has actually had a better opportunity to be able to sleep without being woken up by flashing lights or sirens in the middle of the night. But that's another way really for us to be able to work on that. In addition, communicating with our churches our neighborhood associations communicating with our nonprofit organizations and working together in a unified effort is gonna be the way that we continue to reduce the crime. Crime is down by about 10% in district five overall. Those numbers have been solidified by the FBI. I'm confident when I say that we are moving in the right direction but at the same time we need to continue in that effort and that's making sure that as I have mentioned all those organizations, neighborhood associations, community organizations, churches, police department, council office are all continuing to work in a unified effort. In addition to that working on economic development and I can tell you as far as economic development we have the WDC which is working hard to help support our small micro businesses but also we had the West Side Economic Development Summits and many of you were probably at the meetings over at Lanier High School and also at the, at Rosedale Park at the YMCA. We had meetings there with the residents and with the community and we're able to actually identify a plan to solidify and prioritize key corridors, identify areas that were challenges in terms of hindering us from seeing economic development. Now we're actually able to see that progress moving forward. Over on Buena Vista you see the redevelopment of the fire station which was an old vacant building before. In addition to that working on key corridors like General McMullen where we were able to restripe the street, General McMullen and Castroville and put in some new concrete and medians and crossing, sorry, pedestrian crossing areas because of the West Side Economic Development Summit and the plan that we had there working in partnership with the WDC and working together with our council office and the neighborhood leaders. In addition to that we're actually right now working at the city of San Antonio to open up Economic Development Office downtown at the Central Library for small and micro-businesses. This is also gonna be a mobile site. So what we'll be able to do is have an opportunity for micro-businesses and small businesses which are well over 90% of the businesses in District 5 to be able to walk in to the library downtown and get access to information for funding, for grants, for loans, for financing, for basic steps in terms of opening up a business. But even better than that, I've been advocating and pushing that we take that out to our neighborhood libraries, Collins Garden, Memorial, Bazan, so that these libraries as well in our community can be able to reach out to business owners in the neighborhood because the reality of it is a lot of our businesses are open late into the evenings and they need those areas where they can get that information close to them. Also, working together with parks, I can tell you that we've been able to fix Martinez Park, put some new amenities there. I've secured over $100,000 of Benavidez Park. We've seen the new skating ramps and a lot of improvements over at Rosedale Park, YMCA. I put lights on the softball field behind Lanier High School. We have over $3 million secured for Elmendorf Park. We're working on Mirasol and working on the project to fix up the parks there and also Palm Heights and Normaio. And we have over, we have more District 5 residents that have been able to benefit from the weatherization program in District 5 than any other council district and I'm committed to funding the churches and working with them to keep our centers open for the senior citizens. Thank you. Second, you're very eloquent but you missed two questions. So would you respond to six and seven? I'll give you a minute. Thank you. Well, as far as the community plan, as I had mentioned, working with the Westside Development Corporation and the, from the Westside Economic Development Summits and John Dugan from the director from the planning department, we will work together and we're already doing that. We've set up those meetings for a community plan right here in the Westside. We've also set up a meeting for a community plan for the park right across the street and in addition to that, working on zoning is very important to make sure that we keep our neighborhood in line in terms of zoning. And then as far as the senior centers, we're opening up the new senior center, multi-generational center at Normaio Park but in addition to that, we're identifying a location right here in the community to open up a third senior center in the heart of the Westside and also work to fund the churches to make sure that the nutrition sites stay open. And then as far as attending the meetings, I'm committed to attending all the city council meetings. If there's any that I'm not able to attend then I will be sure to make sure that I contact COPS Metro and inform you so that we can have somebody there on our behalf and my office will be working with you all the way through. Thank you. That's some great ideas. As far as my ideas go, first off I'm not gonna pretend that I have all the answers. It's gonna be my responsibility to put together a team that's gonna be able to get to these problems. Check, check, check. All right. It's gonna be my responsibility to put together a team that's gonna be able to address these issues and concerns to their full extent. But as far as number one about public safety, I'm a father. I'm a father of four and nothing means more to me besides education than the public safety of my children and the people of my community. What we need to do is we need to get in touch with a cooperative effort with our San Antonio Police Department which includes Chief McManus to create a more stringent relationship between the community and the police department and to look at what's going on, prioritize what's going on in our jail system. We have a lot of nonviolent offenders that are currently incarcerated that don't really need to be there. There are rehabilitative services that are out there that can be used to get these people out of incarceration so it can free up space for the more hardened criminals that have nothing to lose. And I don't know about you but on my street, 19th Street, I have been victim and so has my mother. She has been victim to break-ins, home invasions and this is unacceptable. This needs to be, these criminals are pushing and we have to be able to push back and the only way we're gonna do that is by showing strength in numbers and putting a more strong emphasis on a relationship with the San Antonio Police Department. We can't rely on them to do everything for us. We gotta watch each other's backs, folks and it's only gonna start from doing that. Second of all, the economic development that's going on. We have business districts in our community that are unutilized. We have the Kelly, USA area that has millions of square feet of economic housing that can be used for either economic or educational institutions. Why aren't these used? These need to be addressed because we need to put in that vision. We need to put in the vision the creative ideas to bring in these major employers that can turn things around. One major employer can turn things around into community folks. I've seen it. I've visited Compton, I've visited real destitute, former destitute communities in Los Angeles, in Philadelphia, New York and it takes one solid employer, one solid employer that supports local growth. I'm not talking about the Walmart's. I'm talking about the companies that are gonna come in and support the mom and pop jobs, the mom and pop companies that are here to support us. Number three about parks. What we need to do is we need to reinvest ourselves and reestablish these parks. It's not fair that the former generations were able to enjoy these parks and the future generations may not have them or they're in destitute conditions. You have syringes on the floor. You have thugs that hang out in these parks that intimidate people away. We can't do this anymore. We gotta take our neighborhoods back and that includes demanding more funding from any aspect that we can, from corporate development and including the tourism industry. If we can put, if we can gather revenue from the tourism industry to build a house for the Spurs, then we could do that for our neighborhood. We could do that for our parks. We gotta prioritize what's important. I'm a Spurs fan too, but I got more important things to worry about than an NBA game because these guys are making millions of dollars. I'm barely scraping by. There's something wrong here. We need to get our priorities straight. Four, let's see, the linear cluster. We need, again, we need to reestablish ourselves. We need to reestablish ourselves in our intellect. We need to develop ourselves. We need to develop our minds. We need to get our people back in school. And as far as the linear cluster goes, we need to develop another co-op with jobs that offer technological cooperation where students can go and, sorry about that. You certainly, only you still have three questions that you didn't answer. Moreover, you have some good ideas, but the question is, whom are you gonna bring in to do put those ideas in practice because it's not just the ideas that are gonna make a difference. So, would you get a little bit more specific about one minute? Okay, again, that goes more to, no man upon himself is a castle. You have to bring in the key players that are gonna help you bring this together. We need, I have individuals within that are the same, just like me, who have come up from the ground up, self-educated, who are gonna bring in these, who can help me bring in these ideas, bring in employers that can help support the local communities. Funding is a major aspect of these programs. We need to tap any available resource that we can from any corporate sponsors to community fairs. I'm a musician, I deal with a lot of underground musicians that have music and beautiful art that are there to provide. If we can gather these artists together and create community fairs, we can create the revenue to bring in, to support a lot of the ideas that we wanna do. Hope to answer your question. Thank you, candidates. We're wrapping up our meeting now, but we have another question to ask you. But before that, as we mentioned before, we do recognize officials, and Father Richard Hall from San Juan de los Lagos, our neighboring parish, sends a letter that recognizes Mr. Medina for working with us in securing the speed bumps in front of San Juan de los Lagos. We want to acknowledge you for that. We have one last question for each of you, and it is an easy yes or no question. Will you meet with COPS Metro leaders within a month of being elected or re-elected to continue the conversation on these issues? We would like to again ask you each in alphabetical order. Mr. Briones, will you meet with us? Yes, I will, Father. Thank you. Mr. Cardenas? Yes, Father Nacid. I put a representative on my staff. Okay. Mr. Garcia? Yes, sir, I commit to meeting with you guys. Okay. Ms. Gonzalez? Absolutely. Mr. Medina? Yes, Father, I commit. And Mr. Ramirez? I'm right down the street, Father. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now we have some more. We will now turn the meeting back to our co-chairs, Mr. Ramos and Mrs. Mora. At this time, we'll have Natalia Tavar talk about the next steps that are involved in. Wow, guys. How's this going? Okay. I wanna invite you to come to our next march that we're having, Cinco de Mayo march. It's actually to go out and get the vote out. Everybody has a flyer? And each one of you have received that invitation. So please come out on May the 4th to come and teach your family about how to affect the change in your neighborhood. Since we're holding our candidates accountable and leaders and neighbors, we hold ourselves accountable too. We'll be having a non-partisan march walk out to get out the vote. And again, on Saturday, May the 4th at 10 a.m. We want you to decorate posters, banners, and come and join us. We gather here at St. Timothy's at nine in the morning. We'll be having a short continental breakfast and then we'll take off walking from here to San Juan de los Lagos to Sacred Heart and back to St. Timothy. So we want you people to get out to vote and we're taking voter registrations back here for anybody that's not registered. And we wanna thank the safe officers for being here tonight. And thank you all and let's hear. Yay, everybody. Mr. Ramos, Ms. Mora. We're the candidates and we know what to do next to get out the vote. Is that our job? You're right, and we're all for that, right? Okay. We're joining the meeting with this. We wanna thank all of you for being here tonight. We wanna ask you to please stay seated until the candidates exit this hall. Candidates, thank you very much for being here and for your input. Thank you. Leaders, please stay for an evaluation of our assembly. Thank you. All our COPS leaders, we would like to ask you to stay so we can do an evaluation of the candidates.