 At this time, I will turn the opening of the meeting over to Councilman from District 1, Councilman Roberto Treviño. That's okay, just need to put on my glasses. So welcome everybody today, I'm your Councilman for District 1, Roberto Treviño. I would also like to thank all the members that are here today, Councilman Saldana, Ms. Nettie Hinton, this is Maria Beriozaba, Ms. Christine Drennan, Rod Radle, Richard Milk and Jackie Gorman. I think we're missing Susan Shearer. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. I want to start off by saying that this is an important discussion to discuss the issues that impact central city neighborhoods. We were charged as a task force to identify policies and programs that encourage investment in inner city neighborhoods but minimize or prevent displacement of people or adverse impacts related to history, culture and quality of life of unique neighborhoods. Today the task force will present draft recommendations and listen to feedback from those in attendance. Task force members will respond to audience questions and comments about task force recommendations after the audience input session concludes. We've added an additional bilingual meeting, which is Wednesday, April 1st at South Sand High School. It will be at 6.30 p.m. We'll also provide written comments, questions via comment cards and online at sanatonio.gov forward slash planning until April 3rd. So that's available if you want to provide any written comments or questions. Input will be considered by task force before recommendations are finalized. All issues can be addressed by this task force. This conversation does not end with the task force. The conversation will continue with the comprehensive planning process that's kicking off in April, the housing summit in May, and the permanent commission that the task force is recommending by recommending be created more on that later. I'd also like to, I guess, begin the slideshow. We're going to run through the slides briefly. I think everyone's had a chance to look at some of the boards outside, so we'll go ahead and quickly run to these. I'm going to go through these fairly quickly so we can get straight to some of the discussion because I think that's probably most important. Some background, as you know, I established July 2014 by former mayor Costrum and now chaired by the mayor, Ivy Taylor. It's comprised of community advocates, academics, nonprofit housing partners, developers, and elected officials. These are the names of some of the task force, or the task force members. Again, the task force charge, as I read before, identify policies and programs that encourage investment in inner city neighborhoods but minimize or prevent displacement of people or adverse impacts related to history, culture, and quality of life of unique neighborhoods. The task force purpose is to review current policies, review best practices from other communities, identify short-term and long-term recommendations, seek community input, slash discuss scope of issue with community, be inclusive of varying perspectives. So the discussion summary, the task force discussed a range of topics on areas related to the task force charge, many of which warrant further discussion by the proposed commission. These topics are summarized below. And again, I think everybody had a chance to review the boards. Some of our policy goals, to increase the number of mixed income neighborhoods throughout the city, to mitigate the human costs of revitalization, including residential displacement, to identify reliable, dedicated funding sources, to increase the availability of affordable and workforce housing, and to mitigate the cost of household displacement. So we have some short-term recommendations with a timeframe of about six months or less to create a commission to track the implementation of task force recommendations, to produce an annual report on neighborhood change. We also looked at amending the zoning change notification process, designate the City Housing Counseling Program and the Fair Housing Council of Greater San Antonio as primary resources for residents, develop a relocation assistance policy, plan and host a housing summit. The long-term recommendations is to explore an inclusionary housing policy for city and senate residential development, pursue an affordable and workforce housing bond program in 2017, develop a policy for creation and rehabilitation of alternative housing types, explore the development of a community land trust or similar organization, explore the creation of a neighborhood empowerment zone, explore dedicated funding source for affordable housing. And what are the success measures? The number of renter households displaced without adequate notification and compensation per year, metropolitan area ranking in the Pew Research Center's residential income segregation index indicating a proportion of residents living in mixed income neighborhoods, percentage of occupied units with severe physical problems, HUD American Housing Survey, percentage of households who pay 30% or more of gross income on housing, US Census Bureau of American Community Survey five-year estimate, funds raised and leveraged by 2017 bonds for fulfilling the goals outlined in this document. And so here are some of the potential next steps. With that, I'd like to reintroduce Mimi to begin the panel discussion. I'm going to take this off because I'm so much shorter than he is. I'll just be a talking head otherwise. I wanted to let you know that all of the community members' comments are being compiled and they will be posted online after all the meetings are completed. I'm speaking a bit slowly, so the translator has an opportunity to translate. Included in that compilation will be tonight's meeting comments and questions as well as the comments and questions from the meeting that will be April 1st at South Sand. Prior to the inclusion of the comments from tonight's meeting, community members' comments and questions are focusing on some very particular areas, and I wanted to let you know, most of you have attended the meetings, but to let you know what those are. The need to prevent displacement is huge. Preservation, renovation, demolition, and relocation are huge topics of concern. The need for additional community input, and you'll note that April 1st there is the additional meeting on the south side in response to people's comments. The city should help residents and not developers is another huge area of focus. The need for affordable housing for seniors. The greater acknowledgment of the south side and the mission trail is the impetus for the discussion, inequality and a living wage, infrastructure needs, existing and suggested programs, so thank you for those suggestions for new programs to assist, translation, the format of the meetings and information being available online and the opportunity to comment online. Those are the main areas of focus for the previous two meetings, and I'm assuming that some of those will be from tonight and perhaps some new ones that will be added to the compilation. Just to let you know, the public process, the public meeting at Tafoya had 133 attendees. At Ella Austin, there were 99 attendees for a total of 232 community members prior to tonight's meeting who have already engaged in the public process, and that doesn't include online comments, those are people that were physically in attendance. Once again, there are ground rules for tonight's meeting. All questions and comments will be considered. We're going to ask that you focus on the topic, be clear and concise in making your comments, respect the audience members and the task members, do not speak while others are speaking, and I ask this particularly this evening because the translator is sitting amongst us at the table, and any ambient sound coming from the audience will impact his ability to hear. Address questions and comments to the task force, and then respect the three minute time limit for questions and comments, and your three minutes, if the translation takes longer, don't worry, we will wait till the translation is finished before we'll take the next comment. Okay, let me get the sign-up sheet. The microphone in the center of the room is, you can adjust it for your height. I'm very aware of height at this point. Elegino Rodriguez, Elegino Eugenio, can't read. Rodriguez. Hello, my name is Eugenio Rodriguez. I spoke before, and sorry for going over the three minute limit, but it's that when elderly people lose their homes, they also lose their lives. It's called, they lose a will to live. And when I saw this at the other meeting, the governing, governing the G word gentrification that concerned me. One of the things I would like to know or would hope that you all could do if you have a chance is look up gentrification and the health effects of gentrification. The center of disease controls does have information regarding that. And the vulnerable populations have a shorter life expectancy, higher cancer rates, more birth defects, greater infant mortality, higher incidence of asthma, diabetes, and vascular disease. Now, that article can be taken both ways. The problem is that the people that you're trying to help are the people that you're getting rid of. So what good is if you have bike lanes and all this kind of business is the people you were there to help in the first place aren't being helped in the first place. The other thing is the empowerment zones, please be very careful with those. We have what is called the Westside Development Corporation. There were companies already approaching the group before it was even organized. The place is on German Mullen and Commerce. And what I realized is I went to a meeting and that group or that mall was asking for monies. And when they asked for the monies, it was interesting that they showed, oops, that they showed pictures of where the people said, oh, the place is blighted. Look, we don't have any businesses. Well, just by chance what happened is they jacked up the rent. They bought the property, jacked up the rent, and then they show all these empty places, which is sickening because those places had been there for years and years and years. There's one that's leaving that really concerns me and that was the Bank of America. A lot of the elderly use that bank. Now, I don't know if it's leaving on its own accord or if it's leaving because they too jacked up the rent. But they do get incentive indirectly through the city because we have an SAPD office there. I don't think a place like that deserves any public monies after what they're doing. So there's no accountability. For that, many years ago in 2011, there was a request from the Securities and Exchange Commission from a, no, Ms. Scully wrote to Ms. Elizabeth Murphy on February 11th, 2011, concerning municipal advisors. If you look up that letter, you will see that it has a litany of corporations that have been formed by the city, different types. It's too long, three minutes, I won't have time to tell you all this. But still it has all these corporations and what the Securities and Exchange Commission wanted was for there to be some type of accountability. What Scully said was that those that are appointed to commissions and boards not be considered municipal advisors, but be considered employees. The infrastructure, that's what we really need. Drainage, just go to General McMillan West Commerce and that whole area. We've been waiting for over 50 years for sidewalks, close to a school, which is sickening. Thank you. Level. Good evening. My name's Chuck Bain and I'm not here representing anybody but myself. I've been, I do work on the West side. I'm a community organizer, work for Urban Connection, and I do participate in the West End Hope and Action Organization as a treasurer. And I've been observing the task force in process for quite a while. And it's been my distinct impression that the city staff and the elected officials both consider new business and economic increase as more important than the people who've long been tax-paying citizens. This particular process is going down the same careless trail traveled by our city in the past. That is, in the name of progress, our government will continually overlook the most vulnerable, poor, and elderly people of color. The name of this task force is the mayor's task force on preserving our diverse and dynamic neighborhoods. I just don't see the effort going into the preservation of the neighborhoods as they exist now. There's always looking for how do we change the neighborhood. And I think that the task force needs to get back to how do we preserve the flavor of the network or the neighborhoods that we've got? How do we preserve our single family neighbors? Thank you. Good evening. My name's Cynthia Spielman. I live in Beacon Hill, not far from here, actually walking distance. There's several things that can be, I think it's clear just by going to the meetings that people feel traumatized by their dealings with the city. I mean, I'm far from victimized and I feel traumatized often by our dealings. One of the things that I'd like to specifically address is the zoning process. Oops, that's okay, I'll just get it in a minute. I know that what you have on the board outside is amend the zoning change notification process, but in fact, there's a lot that's not being addressed here. I know as someone who's part of our board and we worked with zoning and trying to work, you know, to keep developers from just taking over areas in our neighborhood, that often by the time it gets to us, it's a done deal. You know, we're working people and we're struggling to educate ourselves, to mobilize ourselves, to have discussion among ourselves. And it's a time-consuming process. And by the time we actually get to speak in front of boards, it's always, we always feel it's something of a done deal. And it's exhausting and it's demoralizing and it's frustrating. I wonder specifically about former Councilwoman Maria Bedi-Sable's idea about establishing a mediation process that when a developer comes into our neighborhoods, that we can form a mediation process with an unbiased third party, not the city, in order to try to work out what happens in our own communities. So I'm hoping maybe that can be addressed. Hi, good afternoon. I'm a resident of the East Side. I was born and raised in that community. I left to college to the University of Austin for school. My aspirations are to be a public school teacher. And I'm still working toward that goal. But since I've returned to the East Side, I've seen so many changes. Many of them positive and many of them I have like a conflicting nature with because we talk about gentrification, but it's so visible on Cherry Street in the 78202 zip code. There are lofts coming up that start from $170,000 and up. And for working families, which is what the community is mostly made up of, that's just so hard to even think of with the income that you have, you're already limited to so many things. Sometimes it forces you to ask for public assistance monies just for food. So the dream of maybe owning a home seems so far away. So my question is how are we or what is the city's plan of action regarding a lot of the families that are on public assistance or that maybe have Section 8 or are a part of the housing projects? Is there a plan of action to transition them into a home or is the goal just to provide some sort of subsistence housing while they get on their feet? There's a plan of action for families and it would be great to know that there's a long-term housing plan for them and not just short-term rental living which seems like it's the only thing that's being invested in. Also, oh my gosh, there's so much. I was reading your policy report and it said that one of the things that y'all want to do is to mitigate the human costs of displacement. And I just want y'all to keep in mind that there's some things that cannot be mitigated, for example, death. And I say this because a woman named Carol Thompson, which was a resident of Mission Trails, she was a homeowner of a mobile property. She recently passed away and even though some monies had been given to her to relocate the stress of finding a new community to live in and being familiar with the friends and the community that she had been used to, it just took a toll on her and she passed away and I know that it's related. I just want us to consider that some things cannot be mitigated and it's best to preserve families, the social fabric of the communities that the families live in peace. Thank you very much. Thank you. Carolyn Atkins. I share a great many of the concerns that have been raised already about the dislocation and some of the responsiveness for the residents of San Antonio. It seems like the developers and the growth is of greater interest. I've been a resident of San Antonio for 41 years and for those 41 years I have been a render the whole time and experienced some things that in talking with my city council person's office, I was informed about this meeting, otherwise I wouldn't have known about it. And so I go back to something that was raised at the very beginning, the need for more opportunities for input, ongoing input for this process. What there were two meetings, we added the one on South Sand, the bilingual one. There are countless rental properties complexes on the north side as well and that is not at all to diminish the needs on the southwest and east sides. Okay. Today I was volunteering and assisting with an ESL class on the near west side. Another volunteer from El Salvador who has a master's degree spoke to me of going to rent a simple apartment near the medical center and was told he would need to pay $1,000 in deposit there. Why? Because he was from another country. Okay. And why he raised? Because people from other countries just wouldn't take care of it as well. Okay. Blatantly something fair housing needs to deal with and so forth. I've had experience with fair housing. I'm glad it's there. I found the limitations of that as well. When I contacted my council person's office and was informed of this meeting, I was told that the scope of the task force had been extended to include protection for renters, including such instances when repairs, necessary repairs or utilities are not provided and a way is found through the common new typical San Antonio apartment association lease to give notice that the renter is given notice and must vacate. Thank you, Ms. Sanchez. And I would like to see that continued as part of the agenda. Thank you very much. Graciela Sanchez? I've been at meetings such as this around Hemisphere, around Commerce Street, around transportation like Via. I have never come to one of these meetings with three police there. I do not understand why we have these police. I'm sorry. They do not, police don't always make people feel safe. So how many have we seen at the Hemisphere? Zero. At the LMO meetings? Zero. This scares communities of color, especially working class and poor. That too. I want to know, did you task force members write this? Nettie, do you feel this is language that you wrote? No. Susan? Not entirely. Maria? Christine? Jackie? Mr. Melk? Rod? Mr. Roberto? Okay, I just wanted people to know. Esperanza submitted about 14 questions. We haven't heard any of those answers. How will these questions that we proposed or are concerned about be incorporated into the plan? And I guess what other people have said today, how will diversifying neighborhoods not displace people so far? You know, they're supposed to be diverse and dynamic, preserving diverse and dynamic neighborhoods. When I hear that, you're going to diversify the neighborhoods? For me, that sounds like displacing neighborhoods. I also wanted to say that in reviewing the board, building standards boards, we did some cracking of numbers. And you can see, I'll pass this around. District two has had over 250 calls or demolitions or, you know, compliance problems and District five, like 180 problems. In the last two and a half years in District one. So Districts two, five and one are being targeted. That's all inner city. Who's, what policy is this and how can we stop this from happening? I also know from reading the vacant building ordinance that part of the vacant building ordinance, which I believe none of you have read, talks about giving this land or these buildings to developers. There's also, sorry, just, have you all seen this creative class document from the comprehensive plan? The creative class lives in the north, northwest side. Thank you, Graciella. Wow, we would call them oppressor neighborhoods, we would call them. But I want you all to see this because this is part of the plan, the comprehensive plan, the city's positioning. And the other classes are service and workers. Gloria Suarez. It's okay there. I believe it's okay. Good evening. My name is Gloria Suarez. First of all, I want to thank each and every one of the city personnel that are here for being here for us. My topic mostly is because of the, I am a member of the five points neighborhood. My residence is on Warren Street. And I'm interested in the Warren Street where it gets into South Florida. Due to the fact that about five years ago, the city was able to repay payment, the street itself, and put drain issues, put sidewalk and all that, that was very nice. Certainly we all from the street, thank each and every one of them. But there's a drainage problem for Warren Street and South Florida's meets. The, when it rains, it doesn't even have to rain too much. The, for the persons that have wheelchairs or the ones that pedestrians, adults and children, they go through there to get to Austin school, Stephen of Austin School. And they're not able to cross there. The water floods from all, all across Warren Street and part of the Florida Street. Even the bus stop is right there. When the bus stop, people cannot get on the bus due to the fact that the puddle is there. And it goes up into part of the sidewalk. So that's one of the issues that I like to bring up. I don't know if it's something that you could work on there and see about that. And on, on Marshall Street, there's quite a bit of, of this, where the water gets stuck, that this holes in the ground, but holes, yes, yes, uh-huh, but holes, thank you. And, and there, there are numerous there. And of course, the street in general needs to be paying, repaying, uh, the, the, as far as this, I guess it needs to be removed or something, but that street is in very bad condition. That's what the street worn, the street itself is good. But because of that, coming back to Warren and florist, because of that, sometimes the puddle there, you cannot go through there, even with a vehicle, because sometimes it makes a puddle there. Thank you, Ms. Suarez. Selena Santibanez. Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. My name is Selena Santibanez. I am a product of the east side raised. I represent my niece, my nephew, my cousin, the next generation that lives in this city and that will grow up in our neighborhood in our community. So the ones that we are trying to protect ultimately, correct? And so, um, as y'all all said in front of us, you all work, you, you are here to protect those that do not have a voice. It is to give, um, not only education, but information to those that do not have access, do not have the ability to be here today because they work, because they have children that they are unable to have daycare for. I want to just make a blanket statement. This whole gathering is very much reactive than versus proactive. You all are sitting here as if the fight has already been lost. And that it's going to take place regardless. So this meeting is very much reactive to what's going to happen. What I want to know specifically is the majority of people who live in Eric codes such as 7802, 7808, they live under the poverty limits as of today and literally live paycheck to paycheck where if they do not receive that next paycheck, they will be homeless. What is the city's plan of action and prepare? What are you all prepared to do to prevent that homelessness? Not only for the burden of the organizations that already serve this city as finely as they do. I am a past social manager, social worker for the Salvation Army. I did help Katrina aid today. I also lived in other cities that model. I'm also interested in looking at those model cities that we are, are we looking at model cities that have such as Salt Lake City that has eliminated, eliminated homelessness. The gentrification that is about to take place, like I said, very reactive versus proactive is what are we going to do with those families? I am, I was homeless as a child. I did live in the streets. I know what Sam and Sah and everybody else can do. But if we don't actually work to prevent this, then that burden is not only going to fall on the organizations, the city, taxpayers, but also you all as, as the persons to hold the voice for the community. So I am very, very frustrated to see that my city is evolving in a way that is not to, to the cater of the city or to the best interest of our next generation. Whether it is to that who can pay the most taxes or those who can invest the most money and it is certainly not the people that live and are from here that are investing those dollars. And so if we're bringing in new companies, new organizations to find themselves in these areas so that we can have a dynamic revitalization of the downtown, then why don't we allow people who are local residents to work those jobs? Why aren't we allowing people to have, who have invested their communities and generations to make sure that they are prevented from being homeless? Because at the end of the day, that's what should really matter. Thank you. Thank you very much. Carol Wood. We need, I'm here to say that we need rent control or rent stabilization ordinances in the city for tenants. This is done in all kinds of cities and in places that I've lived previously including New York City. I'm glad that downtown is revitalizing. I'm glad of SA 2020 and all the development that's happening. But I live two blocks from here and the landlord six months ago started raising the rent 25%. This has impacted seniors that have lived there some of them 10 years, 15 years since the place opened. A guy that was legally blind disabled two months ago, he got a notice. He had to move out and move in with relatives. This week an 87-year-old woman received the same notice. Everyone's getting it. There is no protection. A 25% increase is massive. It's not even done over three years and so that's what I think needs to be done to protect seniors disabled and just tenants that have lived here because the people that have lived here 10, 8, 15 years are the ones that are giving the stability and the base to the downtown and know it and create the neighborhood. So it is shredding something that's been worked on to be built up. Thank you, Ms. Wood. Brian Gordon. I'm a resident of the east side and I work on the east side but I grew up on the northwest side. I grew up in a neighborhood where neighbors were in contact with phone call sheets, things like that. So I want to make sure that whenever we improve the quality of life of the areas that you guys are focusing on that it's not a lifestyle that is unaffordable. It needs to be a lifestyle that is obtainable to the people that still live there. If you try to increase things and try to beautify the area just like she was saying before renters will jump on that and raise the rent and that's what implements these things. So we need to make sure that as these improvements do happen that there's also things in set that make sure that other people don't get displaced out of these communities that have built these relationships with their neighbors. They know best what's going on in the communities and they can always be out here to have these kind of discussions. So I definitely think that there needs to be a little bit more of this involved in the neighborhood associations too. Jesus Vidalis. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm native born in San Antonio, Texas. I was born on a deep west side, 93 years ago. I have not seen nothing that has ever been tried to do for the beautification of my city. Back in the day through now as a child, we didn't have no city council people at all. Only commissioners and the mayor. But nobody cared about the whole city in San Antonio to say the truth. Nobody knew the recognition of my city and San Antonio is the only city in the entire United States that has more historical recognition than any other city in the country. And back in the day through now as a child, we had too much poverty, too much neglect, too much discrimination and nobody cared about humanity. I knew what it was to be hungry and not have nothing to eat but not because my dad didn't and I want to work. There were no jobs to be had. He was an architect, I was always discriminated because he was a Mexicano. And through these days, I have not seen nothing that whoever tried to revamp the side of my city. I was born right on the heart of the west side. Ever since then, we had to walk over muddy streets, holes, no sidewalks, no pavement or anything at all. And I cannot swallow to this day that nobody seems to care about the recognition of the west side and also for San Antonio. We need a lot of revamping to be done in my side of the city. But it seems to me that the city council that we have had, either they don't recognize my city at all or they have not had the power of ability to speak out, to try to see what they can do for the side of my city. Now back in the 30s, in the 40s and in the 20s, we have no representation, no representation either. When President Franklin Nevilleville came into office, he was the one that changed the livelihood for the entire country. We had a lot of people that had no homes, the homes that they had were depilated, no money to have enough money to revamp them and keep them in good shape. And to this day, I still see a lot of homeless people, a lot of poverty, a lot of people on my west side that need the homes to be repaired and cared for to help them. They don't have the economic means to try to do the repair themselves and it is horrible. Now that we have city council people, I'm hoping and praying that they can open the garage and the ability to see what we need. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Redalis. Karim Torres, Jr. My name is Karim Torres. I felt out of the sheet of paper the other day and I didn't know this but currently I'm homeless for the city of San Antonio and I went from house to house in the past two years. I'm studying social work and have a few questions and comments. What are the future specific policy goals in which you plan to create specifically for any future to developing that creates gentrification which creates more poverty and apparently death which is what I didn't know until today. I'm sorry for those that died, rest in peace. In what ways will we see that happen, meaning availability to the public? There are adult education centers that are being closed down when developing happens that strip us of our development. To start a new businesses we need to educate ourselves as you do. We need to learn new technologies as you do. I believe that it is important to develop a city from the inside out. In practicality a gentleman can create a business for himself and his family when there is support from the city to do so. This creates a developing economy inside out. This creates common unity within our marginalized communities. Specifically what other types of support will be provided for those affected? Things like the stability of rent which is what I just heard and the production of education centers for example IT education centers. Things that the youth have availability to educate themselves and then create more businesses from there. Thank you. Thank you. Jesse Lara? Mr. Lara? Thank you. I have three issues. The first one is I agree with Graciela Sanchez that the police officers are not needed here this evening. I don't know which one of you made this but I think that they should not be paid for being here. There's no need for them to be here. This is a community meeting. This is not a war zone. It's not a terrorist meeting. This is a community meeting and I recommend that whoever hired them please see to it that they do not get paid for being here. So I have an issue with your policy goals. Your first statement is very discriminatory and I would ask that you change that. To increase the number of mixed income neighborhoods throughout the city. Are you telling me that the spurs who live at the dominion are going to move to the west side or the east side or on the south side? Is that what you're saying here? Are you telling me that minimum wage worker working at McDonald's is going to move to the dominion? This statement is very discriminatory and I would ask that it be changed the language. And then I would like to know or to ask you to keep in mind that you cannot just consider permanent housing as the main focus of all your work. Apartment dwellers are in much need of affordable rents. Right now there is a, I live downtown, I live in the downtown area at the Opish Naval Apartments which is part of the San Antonio Housing Authority. And the downtown market is horrendously high. There is a apartment complex going up at St. Mary's and Cesar Chavez. I want to know who the target market population for those apartment is going to be. Because those rents are going to be absolutely unaffordable. And I want to know why or who the developer is that's doing that and who the population is going to be. If I could move over there I would but I'm sure that I can't afford it. And then the last thing that I want to mention is disaster accommodations. There was a horrible tornado in Oklahoma as everybody is aware of by now I hope. And let's say that here in San Antonio one day we have a tornado or even an earthquake because we do live in an earthquake sensitive area especially with all the fracking that's going on. And so I'm wondering just what is your housing policy going to do to help residents or anybody who should be affected by a disaster such as that. Please keep that in mind as you go along doing your work. And please change this first statement of your policy goals because that's very discriminatory. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Lara. At this time that was the last speaker that we had signed up for this evening. I would like to turn it over to the task force members to respond to any of the comments or the questions that have been brought up by the speakers this evening. I want to respond to Miss Graciela Sanchez's question about the report and if it is the work of the task force and as you saw there are eight, nine people here and we all had a mix of answers. Some said a bit some said no some said yes and I just want to clarify something. This report was given to the task force it was prepared by staff. It includes discussions recommendations from the point of view of the staff. There are some here that weren't discussed and for myself I prepared some recommendations. For example the one that Cynthia Spielman spoke of on a mediation process it's there. I have issues of demolition and looking at the whole demolition process. Issues of making sure that when there are homes available for sale at the courthouse that the process be transparent and accessible because I know people who have tried to buy those houses and the deal is cut before they ever get there. So anyway so I prepared all these recommendations they are not, we never discuss them. They are not part of this report. So when my recommendations haven't even been discussed this is not my report okay. And I just wanted to clarify that. What I have asked is that there be appropriate time for the task force to discuss not only my recommendations but others that some task force members made and are not there yet. So I would like to call it a work in progress that we need to go back and include what has been recommended. We need to include the comments, all your comments and I thank you for coming. I thank you for your comments and that we need to discuss the comments of three meetings that have been held, another meeting that's going to be held. We need to discuss the report to make sure that we all at least discuss them and then develop a process where if some of us don't get everything we want that's fine but at least we discussed it. But what I ask you who are here is that you hold us accountable. Nothing even when I was an elected official I would tell people nothing is going to happen if the public doesn't hold us accountable and you have a right to do it. And if you don't like something you tell us and I make myself available whatever you need to tell me please do it and I'll do my best. So it's a work in progress. We have a lot of work to do and we need to have at least a couple of meetings to discuss everything that has to be discussed. Up to this point we just have scheduled because there's no way that we can discuss all this in an hour and a half. I must tell you I am embarrassed to be a part of this whatever we want to call it. I would like to think that if Julian Castro had remained as our mayor when he initiated this task force at the urging of Diego Bernal because of the terrible situation that developed along Mission Trail and the people who were residents of that area for so many years were displaced because the owner decided to sell the property to a developer probably because of the UNESCO vote that will be held very soon that will make that area an international historical site. And the greed factor kicked in and people decided that they were going to make money off of this area that had been neglected for many, many years but would displace the people who had that as a community for many, many years in order to take advantage of the UNESCO sighting. I would like to believe that if Julian and Diego had been here it would have remained focused on the displacement of citizens of San Antonio and not on economic development and the development of mixed-use communities. I also am unhappy about the fact that although the federal government uses the term affordable housing in many of the documents in the conversations that it has about housing that it really is not a term that responds to what we have here in San Antonio and that is a need for workforce housing. When we look at what it is that fuels the economy of San Antonio, yes, we have for many years had the military as one of the chief components of our economic development and in later years we have had the medical industry being a chief developer of economic development but San Antonio has since the days of cattle being moved from one place to the other along the various trails been a place where people were moving in and through this city and were accommodated by many, many, many kinds of people and we remain an economy that has the service industry as really the impetus for what it is that employs many, many of the people that are here in San Antonio and just about all of our districts, perhaps not in nine and ten but I live in district two, I know it's true of district one and four and five but it is this workforce housing that we need and it is the protection of people who are in the service industry and lower income jobs that we need to make certain that they have a robust and viable community that they can call their own and I feel that with Julian Castro and Diego Bernal not leading the charge that they had initiated that we have lost focus and things have been some people on the committee but also in the direction that has come from city staff to look at trying to get all of our neighborhoods that may be seen as disadvantaged now as mixed communities so we have people of varying wage levels there so that the communities can be developed because they believe there are people there who want to buy Starbucks coffee or something of that nature we're a community that in the earliest days went to ice houses and we still do in many of our viable dynamic communities in San Antonio I feel the sting of gentrification where I live in in Dignivity Hill I find people in my front yard and I happen to live in a house that's on the the National Historic Register of Homes so it's a nice looking limestone house and need a bunch of stuff but it's you know it looks like a great place for somebody who's up and coming to want to live in and I find them in my my front yard and and I ask them may I help you and they say oh we're thinking about buying this property and I say do you see a for rent side or for sale sign and they say oh it's listed on the internet that is how people who are flipping houses in the neighborhoods that are near the downtown the near downtown neighborhoods that's how they're operating and I I believed when Mirkustral asked me to be a part of this committee that he understood that I understood where the dangers were and that I would be one of those voices to try to help preserve the neighborhoods and not get people displaced and changed because you have people coming in from the suburbs the empty nesters are you have Millennials who are moving to San Antonio and they're not interested in having a bunch of babies but they do want to live in an apartment that's relatively close to downtown so they can be a part of the action whether it's near the Pearl or whatever it is that you think is the is the is the neat place to be these days I I want to make certain that my neighborhood the east side of San Antonio remains this place of historical significance that is inviting to people who want it to be a community that they live and raise their children and send their children to the public schools and and be contributing citizens to society and you don't have to be wealthy or affluent people to be able to be a good citizen in San Antonio thank you I was the one that said a bit because there are there are things in this report that we discussed personally what I feel and I think I speak for some of us is that it does it does lack an overarching kind of story on neighborhood change and that and and the fact that that neighborhoods are not just real estate neighborhoods are communities and for a lot of us that's where the so that's where that's where that the safety net is we can't we don't buy it you know we have each other and and so hopefully that can that that part of the conversation will continue but the one thing that I do hope that people will keep on their radar is one of the ideas that has come out is this bond and the use of bond money to personally I'm hoping that we can get this conversation in the direction that the you that there might be some public or bond money available for rehab because we inherit hundreds if not thousands of neighborhoods that are in need of rehab money and and a lot of us don't you know don't have that or are like myself very financially conservative it's like I'm not going to take out alone and so I try to save and save and save to put to keep that house together but this is one place that we as the public and especially those who of us who are really concerned about our existing neighborhoods and preserving them but yes no they're not mixed income neighborhoods they were not built mixed income but there's no reason that we can't have a working-class stable neighborhood or you know in you know workforce housing as as net he preferred the term affordable housing whichever you know that that that work that that those neighborhoods that we inherit that you know our eighty ninety thousand dollar houses they're not new houses and they're homogeneous there's no reason that those neighborhoods can't be stabilized they don't have to be high crime they don't have to be deteriorating so one of the things that does come out of this task for us fingers crossed is this idea for a bond and there's and there's going to be probably a lot of resistance to that you know the and the philosophical argument that do we use public money to invest or to rehab private housing some of us feel that we do because our housing is a is actually both a private good and a public good we all benefit if our housing is in good shape this is you know for good taxes and all of that all of that kind of stuff but we all benefit so I think that we as a community really care deeply about trying to the preservation part of this really need to to to think about this the bond possibility to watch it as it evolves and to get involved in it because I do think there could be a lot of probably a lot of resistance to it and so if you know if that's one of your issues please join us and we can figure out together how to push that one through is the bond that that process is is going to start within the next couple of months I just wanted to thank you for spending your evening here and for many of you in the audience I've seen you at all three of our sessions so far I really believe that it's the community who can make it who has a strong voice with your compelling statements and what you said will now be entered into the record if I look back on all the meetings of the task force what in hindsight we should provide it for input at every single meeting it's easy to say that now but looking forward maybe that'll happen and clearly from the first meeting on the west side it was an enormous message to city staff who prepared the meeting that they need to take in consideration the people who are at the meeting so I applaud your efforts you speak with a unified voice and you'll make the report stronger and I just want to thank you was somebody else going to say something because I have a question that I'd like to ask of someone from staff who's here I'm one of these people who's a news junkie and I read the express news religiously I also read the the newspapers that circulate on the east side snap observer register the prince and I listen to national public radio and I listen to KTSA it gets my panties on a bunch because I'm a red dog Democrat and I'm in a yellow dog Democrat and they're red cat something else's but in the express news the other day they're in the legal and public notices was something that I thought very interesting it's from the city of San Antonio Department of Planning and Community Development a revised public notice a public hearing originally scheduled to take place on April 9th 2015 will now take place beginning at 9 a.m. on Thursday April 16th in the City Council chambers at Municipal Plaza and this this will be a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development required citywide public hearing for a substantial amendment to the city's FY 2015 consolidated annual action plan budget to authorize a reprogramming action in an amount not to exceed one million five hundred thousand dollars in community development block grant funds for housing and community development related activities and to establish a revolving fund with a neighborhood stabilization program in SP revenues generated from the sale of property of the land bank activities to support redevelopment efforts in targeted areas picking up la prensa just yesterday I noticed that there was a very large reprinting of this in la prensa in both English and Spanish but what I saw first was this teeny weenie legal notice in the express news and it was the first that I knew that the city was even searching for monies that had to do with housing and community development and neighborhood stabilization and my question to somebody here in staff who's been working with us all this time why did that never come to our attention why did I have to find this out by reading the express news in the classified in the legal area seems like it would have been number one on the table for us to be at least aware of because we've been talking about funds and housing and land banks for community development and neighborhood stabilization thank you so thank you miss and it's a reprogramming action for federal grant funds it's something that that occurs often as as needs change we adjust how the funds are allocated it's something that goes through the council city council committees and then the final action is approved by city council that's that's the typical process that it goes through before any changes are made the question I'm asking you is since it seems to deal with the question we've been dealing with why is it that it was not brought to the table aren't y'all the people putting this on aren't you all responsible for what we're doing up here aren't y'all Han showing this dynamic neighborhood gentrification program for the city since Julianne and Diego Brunella not here isn't this your baby so again for the reprogramming action we are taking it through the typical process but what does it consist of and why are we not even familiar with the bare details of it since it seems to be dealing with what we have been struggling with for these weeks and for which you are you hope to go to city council on April 9th the date that you're reprogramming this public hearing from April 9th to April 16th and remember we've been asking for this task force to be able to extend its time to continue to discuss and come up with some things and you all have said no that there is a timetable that we must continue to follow and you haven't been interested in extending our time so Miss Hinton I unfortunately do not know the specifics of that reprogramming action and I don't want to speak to it because it is very very detailed but we can certainly get that information to the task force that's something we can do tomorrow I think she's really asking why is that information being shared it's such a small piece and y'all are investing somebody's time to your dollars why are we informing and educating and just giving as much information to the public I have any wrong but it's all about awareness and if it's a small if the city can cause $25 to take off out of a small ad the city's investing in this program why isn't it actually where everybody in the city can pick up in this paper and see exactly what's going on with Hinton so I'd like to just say a few things so I'm the councilman that replaced or was appointed for Diego Bernal spots and I just want to address a couple things number one you we are talking about and I do agree that this is this is part of a of a continuing process I think it's important to understand that what we're really talking about here is how do we continue this conversation I certainly appreciate what you're saying I appreciate the questions in the end you know what what what I've learned sitting on council is that a lot of the big questions come from what are the what's what seems to be the process that something goes from A to B early on we had a case that I had to address of a gentleman whose home was about to be demolished and how it got to that point and in his story and I I felt the frustration then I feel it now it's this is not an easy task I think what we're really looking at here is ultimately we got a kind of in a way work backwards it's about dignity and make sure that we're always thinking about that people's dignity to keep it in place but these are these tasks are very complex they're very nuanced every time we run into an issue at in my office we're we're sort of working backwards with the process there's so many different departments earlier we were talking about BSB for example and I know there was a case recently where it seemed that a department like BSB and another department like office of Historic Preservation were at odds over the demolition of a particular home set of homes and and so that you know the question that I asked was what what was the process of that what why can't these two different departments talk or work together I think the issues that we have are incredibly complex especially in district one district one being the oldest district obviously going to have the oldest infrastructure now by the way as an architect I also recognize that there's there's there's a difference between some of our structures that are built robustly and some that are what I would call disposable housing because they're they're not going to last there's there's there's a way to build things well there's a way to build things for a temporary use so we got to be careful with that too I think what's what what I'm hoping we can establish is a process where we're continually improving and involving the community and I think that's certainly key and I'm encouraged by seeing people out here and have taken notes about some of the some of the the issues and some of the feelings that people have I think it's important for me as a council member to try to learn as much as we can our staff is learning about the different processes and how we can connect our different departments to better serve our community there's the real issue here is is to create a real culture of collaboration to truly work together to try to figure this out I think there's a feeling that like we just heard that why aren't we getting a piece of information why why is it given to us in pieces or late or at all I think it's important that we establish a better process and I've transparency is key of course I think you know everybody up here on this panel is working very hard to sort of try to figure that out again my hope is that everybody feel and understand that this is part of that process this is a the draft copy the hope is that we have a continual improvement of this particular process I think I think certainly I support the idea of more meetings of continued conversations more involvement from our community I meant earlier I mentioned the BSB board this is this is a community that that should be asking to to be appointed to certain commissions that that actually make a difference that actually impact its community and that's that's very important to get involved to be a part of things in their community so that so that their voices heard but know that certainly there there is commitment to continue this process at least from this board so I certainly appreciate the conversation today you know at at all of these meetings at the three meetings that we've gone to you I've been really impressed by the passion at which people approach the bank to talk about the things that interest them some of them I can really wrap my mind around and and say okay we can make that work others of them I really am having a hard time wrapping my mind around and I've stopped a couple of people and asked them if they could help me out we have and we didn't hear it tonight but at the other two meetings we heard it quite a few times that people said that no one should ever be displaced from their home and my question is when you are talking about renters how do you accomplish that without taking away the property rights of the person who owns the property if anybody can show me how we can do that or even show me how it's being done in other places or because I don't think we have to invent things here sometimes we can take what somebody else is doing and make it work in our community but I just haven't seen that any place so you know if you want to talk to me after you know after the thing or send me an email I would love to know how you how we accomplish that and still maintain the rights of those people who own that property because we've looked at a lot of things and one of the things that we talked about and and that was very frustrating to me is that Texas is a property rights states and there are some things that we think would be quick fixes to some of the issues that we've brought up that we are just legislatively prohibited from doing and so that doesn't mean we give up that just means we can't do it today you know we have to have a plan to go try to get that changed so it doesn't matter if it's not something that can happen today I'd just like to know how we do it and then maybe we come up with a plan of how to get there but I just don't know it yet just just a few comments one as has been said multiple times already this is a draft report on some of the items that have been discussed by this group or but feedback that has come in from the community that the majority I think everyone on this task force has been looking for to get the feedback from the community so again we appreciate that very much but just two ancillary comments which is probably known to everyone in this room if you think back to pre-k for essay that would not have passed unless there was a concerted effort from the leader of this community the mayor at that time and working with a broad spectrum of individuals across the city to get it passed to help our kids the same is true with the bond that Christine was speaking of earlier and less we have a concerted effort over a period of the next two possibly forward it depends on when this bond can come forward it will not pass we have to be involved that also means we have to vote we have to vote for officials that will go ahead and I'm not making any endorsements here we have to vote for officials that will speak up and say we need to have substantial resources committed to addressing rental and owner occupied units if we don't do that it will never happen so that's where the real work is going to take place it's going to take place in our neighborhoods and we have to work forward to get that done in a concerted fashion so I'd encourage you to keep talking don't give up keep giving us feedback but also keep working in the communities thank you thank you when we started this process or part way through it at any rate a mayor Taylor asked us to be sure to include ample opportunity for public comment and understand why and I want to thank you again from for being here for spending time for sharing your thoughts it's not easy to be on the other side of the mic and I appreciate your articulating that you've raised a number of questions a number of thoughts that some have come up in our conversations and some are new and we will take these ideas back and discuss them and I just want to reflect back to some of the ones that stood out to me you talked about goals and being clear about what our policy goals are and should be and I think that's important in the and you brought up a number of related issues around goals that had to do with health it had to do with focusing on vulnerable populations defined in a number of different ways I think that's important you talked about process talked about transparency you talked about making sure that and here I'm paraphrasing that we all are equally comfortable with the processes that that are occurring around us in a number of different ways in our neighborhoods and I think that's important for us to wrestle with how do we how do we think about real estate how do we think about property how do we think about renting and the process is an access to to zoning to to changing these things and making sure that we all have equitable access to that you talked about preservation both of the physical fabric of our neighborhoods and of the social fabric and preserving those social ties on the physical side you talked to not just about housing and not just about apartments but also about infrastructure you mentioned streets you mentioned drainage you mentioned kind of that network of sort of invisible work that ties us all together whether we realize it or not and there's a deep history of that in in all our neighborhoods so thank you I think that's it's a very important for us to take that back and to keep working with it and as I think we've all said we'll continue this process again I just want to thank everybody for coming out today want to make a couple reminders a reminder about additional opportunity opportunities to provide input additional bilingual meeting will be held Wednesday April 1st South Sand High School at 6 30 p.m. you can provide written comments questions via comment cards and online at San Antonio dot gov forward slash plant planning until April 3rd input from the four meetings written comment cards and online comments will be considered by the task force before recommendations are finalized and I use that word finalize loosely guys you know we've been talking about you know how frustrating this this this can be for most and we do welcome as much input as possible please take advantage of these opportunities you have to to provide any comments whether through the comment cards or online the final task force recommendations will be available to the public for review and will be presented to City Council on April 29th during a B session the conversation will continue with the comprehensive planning process that's kicking off in April the housing summit in May and the permanent commission that the task force is recommending be created so please stay involved again really need need the community stay involved know that your voice is being heard again I want to thank my panelists for being here today really appreciate everybody for coming out and sharing your thoughts thank you and back to Mimi thank you you're not gonna let his voice being I I want to reiterate what Councilman Trevino said and also to make sure that everyone makes note that April 1st is on a Thursday and instead of its 6 o'clock the meeting will begin at 630 at South Sand so it's a little bit different it starts at 630 this will be the final public meeting before the task force takes all of the comments and all of the questions into consideration for community of all the community input for their discussion so we're going to put all of that together and provide it to them from all for the meetings the two that have already happened tonight's meeting and the meeting on the 1st of April so they will be considering all of those things together and all the public input will be available to them I want to thank you all again for coming out this evening the task force members were available for for you to have a conversation with before they leave and thank you very much