 in this city. Whatever developers want, developers get. This community of the east side, this community of San Antonio, our community had a crime when the city staff of that time was not interested. It's typical, they don't like to save historic buildings anywhere, especially if they're African American and Latino and working class people of all colors. They don't want to save any of our neighborhoods. Now that we're in the inner city that the new folks moving in from out of town or moving in from the suburbs are interested in our inner city, beautiful neighborhoods, which we always knew were beautiful. Now this land is precious when they don't want us here because they want the wealthier ones here. And again, we're first like Nettie who will tell us a little bit more about the history and she was around way back. And we're going to hear speakers who are the younger folks who are who weren't around way back because they weren't born or they were in elementary or junior high school. But last Friday, the city did us bad. We're very angry. You're very angry. Yes. And we just couldn't wait longer. We just want to hold the city council who has been negligent who has just said, I can't do nothing. It's up to the district to guy. That guy has a conflict of interest. He was the lawyer representing Eugene Seymour when we went to court. So the city council has to do something last year when the mayor was when Nuremberg was running for mayor, we had a mayoral forum at the Esperanza, all the candidates. There's one here, Mr. Lucky. And we said, what will you do? Will you help us save this bridge? And they had to put up a green card or a red card. Mr. Nuremberg put up a green card. He said he was going to help us save that land below the bridge to make it a community park. And he has reneged on that promise. And he's absent. He's an absent mayor when it comes to this issue. He's just hiding behind his other chiefs of staff trade Jacobson as a conflict of interest. His trade Jacobson was the lobbyists that make this deal take place on behalf of Eugene Seymour. And now trade is telling the mayor, don't do anything about it. And he's telling Scully what to do. All of these backroom sweetheart deals have got to stop it here. It starts here with a street bridge land, but it continues throughout the city because all of us are feeling it all over the city. So is I got to talk because you weren't ready. But now the east side Miss Nettie Hinton 79 years old as of January 12th. And I don't mess around. I was born on the corner of I live in Center Street. I am from this community. I graduated from St. Peter Claver Academy, live open Center Street and the nuns just celebrated their 125th anniversary of beginning a school for black children of emancipated slaves. So they have a superior education. And I'm a product of the Maryland River Mother Melda. She was one bad broad and proudly to say the first African American from San Antonio, Texas to earn an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas in Austin, January of 1960. I taught school here for three years at the segregated Abraham Grant Elementary School on the west side fifth grade. And then I went to Washington DC and I marched with Martin Luther King and I was on the mall in 63 when he gave his I had a dream speech. I have been in the fight of very long time. I tell people that when Dr. Walton came around the corner to our house on the corner of Olive and Center Street to birth me, he got my job description from God and it said she's gonna be a hellraiser on her so she could deserve heaven in the eternal life. Now, this is what we need to do San Antonio. This land here I sat in Berkeley Dawson's office with a gentleman who just passed away a few weeks ago and another member of the conservation society and we convinced the Dawson's to donate this land to the city of San Antonio so that once we got the bridge restored and it became a part of the Howard Peak hike and bike trail connecting the museum reach of the San Antonio River through dignity across the bridge and over to the Salado Creek that we would be able to have bathrooms, water, a palapa a place for the bouncy things for for the the the kind of birthday celebrations that we have at the park and at the very end a skate park so that our youngsters will not be in danger did not help us get the federal money to restore this bridge only when we the the history of restoration group were beginning to be successful and they realized we were gonna get the 2.9 million dollars to restore the bridge did they decide oh we'll join with you because the feds say 80% is our money 20% is somebody else's so they did not want to be embarrassed by having people know they did not contribute but what they did was they forced us to sign a memorandum of understanding that said you H3 Bridge people are really going to be the people responsible for the 20% we just gonna get the glory but they said we said that's okay mr. Dawson said named the park after the family we said fine the railroad gave us bridge conservation society gave us $50,000 the civil engineering and structural engineering community gave us money individual donors gave money and we made it the first thing we knew had DJ Avani who was the deputy city manager at the time mr. Unethical who has since had to resign from that job and then had to just resign a few minutes ago from Cintro San Antonio because of ethics and fraud started working the deal with this land not only did they take steps to give them the land and give it okay we'll give it to you $295,000 and then we're gonna give you incentive of $295,000 to do landscape so I was a watch it was the jury's decision the judge had no help and Cheryl Scully and the city then went to the next layer and they decided we were just in favor of the city of San Antonio and then they started beating the land to you to see more and he's leaving the land to a guy who wants to build first they said affordable housing no no no no no now it's market rate housing which is the same way that you have on Broadway and so we're not talking about something that people from our community of the historic bridge because we got it declared historic would be the people living in these high price departments the community anybody in the city to try Cintino who wants to come and appreciate fireworks or whatever would not be able to do it except on the bridge they would not be able to be out here and be able to see it from the airport portion of any place else now this dirt design and review we have been successful brought this case to HDRC and with this last loss for them the city manager decided I don't have to pay attention to them I've gotten the power to do whatever I want in San Antonio because the city charter gives the city manager the power the mayor and city council pretty have bully full fits but that's about all so I'm gonna take this away from HDRC and I'm gonna give it to the developers and I'll give them some stipulations but the stipulations are such they can be easily done they're not gonna have underground profit they're not gonna have buildings that are only one story tall so that anybody who's standing out there on Lamar Street are over here in their homes will be able to see the value of the of the bridge you know the city is at its core at the moment ethically challenged I know about that I think I sat in the back of a bus to the restaurants I had to be stepping off the street downtown if somebody they do look like me bite now for righteousness and the city of San Antonio wants to take that in this country trying to present it as a place of cultural diversity fairness caring about his people when what they're doing is colluding with people with money a long story about developers pay school taxes for multiple years and I'm not talking about one of two 20 30 body 50 60 70 depending upon how important that is who is negotiating this for you we are in the hands of unscrupulous people in San Antonio we have got to take our city back and make sure that they do the right thing for the right people and those people are us on March 7 the night before he passed away he made me promise that I'd carry on the five his last words were to me we're about the bridge work and if express news is here please get the quote right this time those crooks of the city stole the land from the people not sold it stolen they didn't even have the common decency to make a couple bucks off and they gave it down low brewery who then his turn is giving it to the bridge complex so he can make a little more money no this land was deeded by the Dawson's and Budco to the city people of San Antonio to be a part just like Union Pacific needed these bridges to be an access from downtown to the east side for the people of San Antonio Mary Nuremberg if you're listening you need to do what she said you do make San Antonio the city the people deserve San Antonio deserves this bridge they deserve the park because guess what you don't have two point nine million dollars to come up with my dad raised at two point nine with a handshake with honorable Jeff Wentworth between two Texans that two point nine million dollars came and yes San Antonio couldn't come up with the 20% you know came up with the 20% the people of San Antonio dancing around it I'll say it's corrupt backroom deals it was a labor of love for my father and as you can see it's beautiful it also did the Alamo dome does the city want to give away the land around the Alamo Dung for private enterprise I can look at the city line here and see all the buildings my father was part of and those were commercial businesses this was a labor of love he wanted this bridge to be here for the people of San Antonio for that gateway from downtown to the east side and when it was done everybody was proud of the bridge the city was great the city council wanted to take credit for it happening when they have nothing to do with it five-story buildings canceled it at four stories they came back with five stories and the city manager Scully goes around about and approves it on a backroom deal except corrupt so please if you have any sense of power any call your councilman call the mayor's office so it can become a part just like it was always intended to my father worked on this deal for over two decades the developer was whining at the historical meeting because he'd worked on it for three months my dad was working on this bridge over 25 years to make it happen not for himself but for the people of San Antonio I mentioned this before I ran into a letter to the editor that Doug Steadman wrote in 1967 challenging the city council in 67 to fix up the bridge before that hemisphere was coming to town that's 51 50 years ago 51 years ago so now we're celebrating hemisphere so it was 20 years but it was another 30 years before that help me welcome Marlon Davis looks like the sun is beginning to go down so we have a light out on my personal I'm not sure they frame our process as if our anger only began with this project lies in the breach of contracts which each of them is fully aware of in 2020 the council privately approved a sweetheart deal to befriend a former mayor Hartberger Eugene Seymour we filed a case and in 2014 a jury found our 2002 agreement with the city had suffered a breach of contract we have been betrayed and in accordance with the law we filed a motion of each step of the way we have followed the rules we have engaged in civil process we have mobilized our communities and developers have only invested money we have invested our very lives so why are we being paid to this department how is Meyer exhausted he has won the special and particularly rare approval of city manager Scully it only takes one glance at Al Mabeer to know that someone is drunk on power but just as the HG Bridge divides the land here we draw a line in the sand our communities and our lives are no longer for soon just as we gathered here today with these small lights to guide us we can take these lights back to our respected communities what starts as a spark can grow into a wildfire tonight our collective life symbolic of the city burning its bridge with the community tomorrow we stop burning and we build yes we build bridges to soapworks to town center to mission reach to Essex the city has chosen to prioritize private interest we will support public interest publicly so we say private hands off public lands and we demand to meet with Mayor Nuremberg City Council and former Mayor Harberger and demand the justice that they see on community deserves at this time we would like to open the floor to any sort of concern consists of citizen anyone who has a voice anyone who would like to lend their voices to this program and voice your voice your opinion voice your standard candles available we also have candles available you have not brought one with your cell phone does not have a flash oh do you want to say something repeat city but at this moment it seems to be a city without a heart you know when this project first came to being I was on the city council I was a city council and I was originally not in favor of it as a matter of fact I suggested that the whole thing be torn down and a guy by the name of Charles Middleton came to me and he said you know what's honest we can make the bridge that goes over the railroad tracks because the railroad tracks has always been a symbol of segregation people of color live on the other side and we can make a bridge different social economic status which makes it a bridge against classism and a bridge against racism and after he told me that I said well I'm not in favor of carrying it down because that made it a symbolic historical reason for having built this bridge the way it is now in the first place so I'm here just to say that Sarah Scully I mean the mayor I think met with people constantly char met with people but I don't think correct me if I'm wrong I don't think the city managers ever been over and met with anybody well she needs to get off her high horse and come down here and meet with people and see what the people want as opposed to what she wants if you can't see this bridge because they're talking about going it way high up because he's more interested in selling beer to whatever drugs come out of there over to over to his place and that's not fair as far as this community goes and then what nitty hint and explain of how it was developed as a result of those people donating the bridge and doing all that meant to completely go against what those people stood for now I am just totally disgusted with the city manager and since she needs to get off her high horse and listen to what the people say as opposed to what she wants to do that needs to happen that needs to happen now and not later so I'm totally in favor of preserving the integrity of this bridge in favor of preserving the integrity of what the people want and not what the city manager wants and so I will be glad to lend my voice to this effort to preserve the integrity of the symbolic reasons for this bridge having been renovated in the first place thank you so I just want to do some correct the record stuff I don't know if everyone here has read the reward report story that was written about the deal that was made but the HDRC meetings that I was at definitely featured more than just outsiders of the community I heard residents of the community speak about their love of the bridge if you would have read their friend in a story that's not the opinion you would have gotten Mitch mayor would like to frame this as an outsider thing I think the bridge belongs to the city I hear a lot of conversations about the residents of district 2 and I think the the conversations around gentrification are important but it's also important to remember that this is a city landmark this is a world historic landmark this belongs to all of us and so a framing that you know relies on you know where there are more bodies in favor than more bodies against is just a false and it's one that serves at Mitch Mayor's agenda so be careful when you read the stories they get printed about this bridge because from the basic first premise there's a lot of falsehood this is some truth right here that we're seeing in front of us the community members coming out to support saving the bridge when you read those new stories remember this image remember the image tonight and don't let the new story mislead you I stood at those meetings a lot of people use the opportunity to tell stories stories you know move me even though the board said it wasn't turning to their authority I think the space hijacked as it was by us to use it that way was was an influential move and I think it needed to be done because there really is no other space for us to do that there weren't any public meetings where we could discuss these things fairly and so we need to take these opportunities like spaces like HRC to do that and if you would have been there you would have seen you know 40 or 60 people for and very few against and the new residents you know they say you know we need more eyes on the bridge you know this is why we're talking about expanding the conversation to gentrification because we know things like more eyes on the bridge we know it means you know we're afraid of the vagrants we're afraid of our neighbors they don't see public activity as public activity they see it as you know late crime or vandalism I don't know if this looks like vandalism to you this looks to me like a community meeting on a beautiful night this is the kind of stuff that they're very hostile towards so what we're arguing about is just a mentality about how to think about the world bridges like this spaces like this where people can gather is one vision and then a vision where you know brewery with some new residents and a condo with some new residents you know where the neighborhood totally changes is another you know I think we should care about history and I think we should care about community so that's why I'm standing out here speaking with all of you and I thank you for listening I neighborhood Harvard Place East Lawn next to the AT&T Center of New Brown Falls property is at the highest in all of the city so it bleeds into gentrification and it is right here it is right at our doorsteps and this is it this is really the sign of what's to come I am telling everybody we are going to witness the largest displacement of people since the building of the Alamo Dome and once again let me state that the largest displacement of people since the building of the Alamo Dome I live in a neighborhood why why people can't come out here on an evening that's so beautiful as this is because they have to work 60-80 hours they have to take the bus to pick up their kids and drop them off at work that's why it's not because they don't care it's not because they don't want to be here they just don't have that privilege that we all have been here ourselves so by us fighting by us standing here it is representing all of our brown and black communities that are unable to be present here today this is exactly what they want they have pinned the African-American and Mexican-American communities against each other for decades this is just a sign of what is to come the fact that the city blatantly ignores the call for the community the outrage the disgust you look at a councilman who really is just there to put a notch on his belt I will be the first one to tell you he's known me since I was a teenager at Ella Austin this is merely just for himself why did he represent Seymour because it was an entire circle that brought him here this was a strategic placement it wasn't in the support of the community or to represent that community this was here to represent himself as all of these private individuals do this is public land with the fact that in the days African-Americans this was the only way they could access the east side am I correct Nettie that this is the only bridge as rinkety as it was that they could cross and come into the city it is not that they don't care it is not that we don't care it is the fact that our city leaders and officials are ignoring us and we should be concerned about that thank you very much there's a couple of things left to so we went through this public process whenever we talked to district two and we're looking at people that we needed to really start connecting with to make sure that these things happen district will crucial was saying that the public was never involved in this process you know and or that the public was involved in this process but very much from the very beginning from whenever it was introduced to dig now to ill neighborhood association and that vote happened there wasn't really much of a public process that happened there that's what opened up the doors in the first place and then we had to chase the problem this whole time and whenever we even started getting involved in having interactions where they were involved with the community process it still shows that even in hdrc where we had 20 people show up the first time 50 people show up the second time the situation is growing this is the number one spot for instagram photos you know it's the number one spot on ohp's view shed agenda and priority list it's in the middle of the lawsuit you know there's all these things that are showing that this is obviously something that the community has demanded to make a decision like this is going against all that and it breaks the whole public trust system so we need to keep in mind that this doesn't break what we do we still need to keep being out here we still need to be present like today we still need to participate in the same way thank y'all for coming out we still have some time if anybody else wants to add some more things can come forward before we close up I know that you did mention that the some of the media got it wrong but I do want to at least do a shout out to nowcast because and has been witnessed what the community has said so so thank you for being there it's good to also have historic preservation is here from the express news and not just the business section because the business section tends to take care of its own so thank you as well and and thank you to all the media who came out the current did a great story back in December and so they we did reach out to them today and got a new writer so thank you very much and channel 5 channel 12 was here obviously the media even knows something dirty went on at City Hall and so they're wanting to hold the city accountable so thank you for giving light that's why today we're giving light we're trying to honor the work of all of us there's 16,000 people online or just under 16,000 people online that have signed a petition another three or 4,000 hand written petition so more people than the 40 that they say are from the Dignity Neighborhood Association that are in favor of this development 40 vs. 18,000 I think there's a major difference in size numbers and we know that there are many more so thank you for being here again is there anybody else from community that wants to say something awesome epiphanies lately for one secret secretary to say you know I was really like a top 16 list really it's kind of like the history is lost I like to tell I like to tell it from Napoleon you know the birth of Western imperialism I've told it to the smoothie girls by the sack I told it to my family who I'm also realizing was pretty much fed hate by my grandpa a lot pretty much you got to run it up the birth of the drug war 2021 is a 50 50th anniversary of the drug war five decades in I've nothing but distraction you know every anything you possibly divide you know so I tell my I tell my my nieces story just so just so you're not in the now making a conclusion what you see and you're just spinning you know it's best to come I'm under so we can solve the relativity is there you know it's it's not the hardest key points you know when they shot Martin Luther King it wasn't for women's rights it wasn't for you know black rights voting rights it was when he started talking about social economic equality Nixon started Nixon started the drug war and then in the 80s Reagan Reaganomics 90s they put crack on the street now you got to worry about a drug war boom attacking you in the parking lot fear which I'm realizing is just kind of illusion they just want you to just speak up and never unite and nothing will happen so yes I continue to tell stories where I find when conversations get stale so we're done yes muchas gracias and if you're not on a mailing list a phone list text list please sign on because we're not gonna stop this is not going to be developed for private gain and greed this is all about greed they they told us they sold the city to give this land away because the animal beer company was gonna be the economic generator that was gonna bring the community here look at Alamo brewery right now there's no one there and they have been struggling for all these years to try to get people to go and buy their beer and hang out there so that since it's been so unsuccessful this is why they need to build these apartments again market rate they've gotten 1.2 million dollars for that sea chip funds they've gotten $449,000 in tax deferments they got a $50,000 grant they got a $295,000 grant it's been over two million dollars that the city has been given between Eugene Seymour and Mitch Myers and what does the community get in return so keep holding city council accountable call the mayor call your city councilman call all city councilmen and women and tell them they did wrong shame on them for being quiet shame on the mayor shame on the council for being negligent on this gracias and thanks everybody for helping come here if those of you who are still around can help us pick up the stuff hang out people said it was kind of windy it's always nice and breezy on this bridge oh Amy's here I just want to say I've been talking to people as they go by really urging them to call a council person call the mayor so a guy who's visiting from Orlando is about to call the mayor so please please please call the representatives call the council members get everybody you know to call them it will really make a difference 10 10 people calling and they begin to pay attention and we need to flood there with calls thank you and yeah say where I say the community is angry the community has been robbed of this land and we want it back