 Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the College of Public Policy Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series, today featuring the honorable Ivy Taylor, mayor of the city of San Antonio. I'm John Frederick. I'm vice president and provost at UTSA. And I'm filling in tonight for Dean Rogelio Sines. He had the misfortune of traveling to Washington DC this weekend and has been really struggling to get back to town in time for this. And I'm told that, in fact, the flights are not cooperating, and he's not going to make it in time tonight. I want to say a little bit about the lecture series and about the college. College of Public Policy is dedicated to the advancement of public policy and practice that contributes to the public good. And they do this through nationally recognized research, progressive educational programs, and through collaborative partnerships within the community. This particular lecture series, the Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series, was created to promote understanding and dialogue led by experts, that is, policy experts who are experienced and well known. They have brought in, as a part of this series, a lot of speakers that are renowned policy experts from around the globe. And I believe that lectures like these are really essential to, they're an essential ingredient for building the kind of community of scholars and excellence that UTSA is striving for. I'd like to recognize several individuals who are here with us tonight. We have members of the UTSA Student Government Association. If you'd stand and be recognized. All right, thank you. We have a big contingent from our UTSA top scholars program. I think I saw them standing in, or sitting in the third row and the first row. We're blessed to have some students here from East Central High School. And I was also told Fox Tech High School, if you would all stand as well and be recognized. All right, thank you all for coming. I also want to thank Mayor Taylor for taking time out of her busy schedule. She has been a strong supporter of UTSA, and we really value the partnership that we have with the city of San Antonio. Now, before we get to Mayor Taylor, I'm going to bring to the stage Dr. Francine Romero, who is Associate Dean of the College of Public Policy. And I should mention an exemplar of the Community Engaged Scholar. And Francine will introduce the mayor. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. These lights are so bright I can't see you. It is my honor tonight to provide an introduction for Mayor Ivy Taylor. She has been a friend and a colleague for almost 10 years. And these sorts of occasions tend to prompt you to remember the first time you met a person. But I actually recall the day in 2006 when I didn't quite get to meet her. It was after a city council B session when I was being considered for reappointment to the city planning commission. But the big topic that day was this woman named Ivy, who was up for initial appointment to the commission. And I heard she was in the hallway after that session and I went to go out and meet her. But I couldn't get close. I couldn't even see her because of all the well-wishers around her. It wasn't just council members and other notables, but it was mid or entry-level city employees who knew her and who had come by city hall to congratulate her because they already had a sense of what a great job she would do. And she did. She was really the conscience of the planning commission. Often when the rest of us were immersed in discussing the minutiae of things like plat maps and driveway variances, she would encourage us without any ground standing to get back to the issue of people and how our decision might affect the people involved. And I think that's been a hallmark of her tenure as a council member and mayor. She clearly has the background and the expertise to deftly deal with all kinds of policy matters, but she never forgets the human element. And those traits made her a wonderful teacher and we wanna take the opportunity this evening to recognize and thank Mayor Taylor for being such an integral part of our team as a full-time lecturer in the public administration department. She served in that capacity from about the time she started on council until her election as mayor last spring. Her impact on students was tremendous. Both in regard to how she taught her classes and as a role model to them. It will manifest itself in ways we can't even envision yet as they embark on their careers. But imagine having your professor get invited to the White House for the first time. When that happened, I know I bragged about it more than she did. In fact, she didn't brag about it at all because her path has never been about self-promotion. Rather, I remember her actually being apologetic because her trip to the White House caused her to miss freshman orientation. I was looking back at some of Professor Taylor's syllabi today and those demonstrate such an innovative and community-centered approach to public administration and urban policy. Her class assignments included reflections on the ethical obligations of public service, the policy implications of changing demographics in both large cities and small towns, reading not just textbooks, but novels about cities and giving extra credit for reporting on speeches that were given at the Martin Luther King Day March. She also got extremely high evaluations. For one course in particular, a senior seminar, she got a perfect score of five out of five on both the course and instructor ratings. So I had to go take a look at that syllabus because you know, students, sometimes you reward us for making classes a little bit easier, but that wasn't the case. It was actually a very challenging course and it was that the students recognized and really appreciated that challenge that she gave them. And to mention just a few highlights of her efforts here outside of the classroom, Ms. Taylor pioneered our Professional Development Institute offered in partnership with the local chapter of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators and she launched our Conversation Starter Series where students had the opportunity to engage in small and intimate discussions with people like San Antonio City Manager, the Bear County Sheriff and the CEO of the San Antonio Water System. We greatly miss her here at UTSA, but of course our loss is the city's gain. And we are so honored to host Professor Taylor here this evening now as Mayor Taylor. So please join me in welcoming Mayor Ivy Taylor to the stage. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Okay, great. Make me feel a little better. Thank you so much, Dr. Romero, for that kind introduction. Well, when I walked in, I was asked if I wanted a lavalier lapel mic and I said no because I'm gonna be gripping the podium because I figured I'd be a little bit nervous, but you all seem like a friendly crowd. I can't really see you, so that makes it easier as well. Well, thank you very much for inviting me to participate in the Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series for the UTSA College of Public Policy. It's quite an honor to join the nationally recognized scholars, researchers, and practitioners who've been part of this series in the past. And of course I'm pleased to be able to continue my association with the College of Public Policy. As Dr. Romero just pointed out, I taught in the Public Administration Department for six years until just after my election, election as mayor. I still taught here during the first year when I'd been appointed. UTSA and the College of Public Policy are so important to our community. It's absolutely essential that we have a top tier research university here in our community, also an institution that's actively engaged in studying and solving the problems that face San Antonio. It's gratifying that as mayor, I have the opportunity to continue to work with my former UTSA colleagues on housing, criminal justice, and other policy topics. And it's even more rewarding to have the chance to work with former students who are making their careers in public service. I've run into some at City Hall and who also work at nonprofits. But I'm particularly proud that a former student named Neil Schnooker works in my office. He started out as an intern. I came to class one day and I said, oh, we need some interns at the mayor's office. And he signed up and after he graduated, we were able to extend an offer of an employment to him. So I hope that our classroom and now our office are the kind of environment that helped Neil continue his education, not only learning about the world, but thinking about his place in it, his goals and what he can contribute. In short, I hope that he's on the path that not only fulfills his own potential, but also one that allows him to give back to his community. Now, when I was Neil's age, that kind of thinking didn't come naturally to me. But let me share a little story with you from the first book that I chose in 2014 for the mayor's book club, which was an expansion of my district two book club and effort that I'd had as a district two council member. Some of you who may remember my first choice, book choice, may have found that choice a little puzzling. It was a book called Rocket Boys. Anybody read that? Or maybe you saw the movie called October Sky? You see the movie? Okay. Well, the book, the movie is based on the book Rocket Boys, which was a memoir by Homer Hickam about growing up in a small West Virginia mining town. Homer and his friends became consumed by the idea of designing, building, and launching their own rockets. And their passion carried several of them into distinguished careers in aerospace engineering, the military and the sciences. But as Maria Anglin pointed out in a nice column in the Express News, the Rocket Boys of Coldwood, West Virginia can offer a lesson that's especially needed in San Antonio and other communities where young people's dreams are often limited by their circumstances. That great things can happen when we have the courage to push beyond our circumstances. But just like rockets, we always need someone to light the fuse. As one of Homer's teachers told him after another failed launch attempt and reply to his complaint that he had done his best, well then, do better. We all need inspiration. We need teachers and mentors and even the occasional shop foreman, like the one who helped Homer Hickam to create his rockets. We need those teachers and mentors who believe in us and challenge us to do better even when we think we've already done all we can. Sometimes we need someone to speak as bluntly as Homer's teacher did to ignite that spark and set us on a higher trajectory. Sometimes those words of inspiration come from someone that we may personally know as in Homer Hickam's story, but sometimes we find them in history and in books. Now, throughout my life, I have felt the power of books. Growing up, I loved escaping into the world of books because my parents were pretty strict about a lot of things like TV, music, and the movies, but for some reason they didn't monitor what I read. They let me read just about anything. There were some things I read I probably shouldn't have, but it was in a book that I found a piece of advice that changed my life. An idea that set me on the path to be here at this podium and here in this room with you today. A professor named Dr. Randy Posh wrote a bestselling book in which he discusses really achieving your childhood dreams and he tells us that it's important to have specific dreams. And as a child and as a young woman, I couldn't quite relate to this piece of advice. You know, I grew up, for those that don't know, I grew up in Queens, New York. Parents who had migrated there to seek better opportunities and escape the segregated south. I went to my neighborhood public school just like all my friends from the block. Their lives were very much like mine. Parents who worked but who weren't professionals and certainly didn't have college or advanced degrees. And perhaps some of you in the audience are like me. Perhaps the dreams that you had as a child were limited by your life experiences, your neighborhood, your ancestry, or maybe even your skin color. I can specifically remember being a child and thinking that the extent of happiness and success that I would experience was limited by the fact that I was born in this black skin. Thankfully, as I grew older, I began to shed those notions but found that even in college and immediately after college, I didn't have a specific vision of my life in mind. But when I read Dr. Posh's words, they struck a chord in me. Growing up in Queens and then studying American studies, I was deeply aware of the divisions within our country and even my parent's story of leaving where they grew up to seek better opportunities. I was aware of the divisions within our country and in our communities. We only have to look around us to be aware that the promise of American democracy, a revolutionary promise that has inspired people around the world has never been fully realized for all Americans. Many of our country's greatest leaders from the founding fathers to the suffragettes, to the heroes of the civil rights movement willingly dedicated their lives to continually expand the cause of equality and thus expand the birthright of universal citizenship that was implicit in the Declaration of Independence. In a less quoted section of his landmark I Have a Dream speech, Dr. King explained that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were, quote, a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, end quote. Susan B. Anthony made the link to citizenship explicit in the Declaration of Rights of Women in 1876. As she said, we ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever. It's been a journey of almost 250 years as we struggle to realize the ideals upon which our great country was founded and we continue to make progress. First black woman in the US to become a federal judge, Constance Baker Motley expressed it in this way. Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade. Now each of us has an obligation to live up to that expectation of citizenship that great American men and women fought for, the rights that they helped us secure. And in fact, I think each of us has an obligation to dream as Randy Posh advised us and as Dr. King did. So I'd like to share with you my specific personal dream which I wrote in a notebook at the age of 24 following the advice of Dr. Posh. And what I wrote is I want a career that involves a commitment to positive social, physical and economic transformation. I want to work with people to develop a better future. I like to communicate with others about ideas. I want a career in public service which combines several of my interests. Well, I feel so blessed to be standing here 20 years later living that dream. I found that being able to enunciate that dream was a big step forward. When I was able to formulate that dream, it gave me a roadmap for my future. I came here to San Antonio for a summer job and came back because I met a man, y'all. I'm not gonna lie to you, I met a man. And he is the reason I came back. But when I got back here after graduating, I took a job with the city of San Antonio. I became engaged with housing and neighborhood planning and I worked in the nonprofit sector. Through this work, I learned more about San Antonio and why that economic transformation and better future that was in my dream are so important here. While we've made progress during past decades, we know that one in five San Antonians still lacks a higher degree or high school degree. We know that thousands of San Antonians still live in housing that may lack complete plumbing or adequate kitchen facilities. We know that in our city, there's a 50% chance that a single woman with small children is living in poverty. So after viewing these facts about our city, learning this about our city through my work here and working in the affordable housing sector for a number of years, I felt called to do more. So I took the risk of running for elected office. Actually, it was some community members who came to me and suggested that I run for the district two council seat when I was still an employee at Merced Housing, Texas. So it wasn't my idea. That's something else I'd just like to offer as some pearls of wisdom learned along the way to young people that sometimes other people can see potential in you that you may not recognizing yourself. So I took that risk to run and was chosen by the voters to serve as council member for district two. And then some years later, chosen by my council colleagues to serve as mayor. And then finally was elected by the voters of the city in 2015. Now looking back in retrospect, I see the path from dream to action. My work in the nonprofit affordable housing sector at Merced Housing, Texas allowed me to directly support the positive development of our residents and the neighborhoods where we developed housing. And then teaching here in the public administration department combined my interests in cities, my desire to help bring about change in my community and of course my deep seated belief in the value of ideas. And my time as an elected official has been focused on supporting and leading broad based efforts to improve San Antonio's future and the futures of our families. Those, these common threads that run throughout my dream and my story are not unique. In fact, there are two themes that recur throughout American history, these ideas of community and service. Americans have long been known for their ability to come together freely and work in collaboration to address problems big and small. In fact, this was a hallmark of early America and one that visitors noted. For anyone that ever took intro to nonprofits with me this will sound familiar. In the 1830s, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that in democratic countries the science of association is the mother science. The progress of all others depends on the progress of that one. Although the language is dated, almost 200 years later we recognize exactly what de Tocqueville means here. Often it's assumed that the only way things get done in our community is through these associations. As an elected official, I work with, consult and address such groups every day. At the most basic level, the city of San Antonio can't accomplish its work without volunteers. And in fact, for many years, your council members were essentially volunteers. Hundreds of residents serve on more than 90 official boards and commissions ranging from planning commission, zoning commission to the mayor's fitness council. And it's our job as elected officials to make sure their service is substantive and rewarding because there are certainly many other demands for volunteer service in our community. Now, some voluntary associations are high profile from a number of the chambers of commerce to powerful unions to well-established advocacy groups, neighborhood associations, and trade or industry institutes and organizations. These are the movers and shakers, men and women who set agendas for their constituencies and communities. Now, while their work often serves their own interests, no one can deny that these collaborations take place through those same voluntary associations that de Tocqueville remarked upon. But let me speak on a more basic interpretation of service and along the way, how service actually defines community. I hope you all know the Martin Luther King quote about greatness and service, which is that everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. We see examples of these people every day here in San Antonio from the airport boosters who welcome new Air Force recruits after they land here in our city to PTA parents and coaches who help make school and sports events meaningful and memorable for our kids to the mentors that some of you here in this room had through programs like Big Brothers, Big Sisters. This kind of public service is not just about a few extraordinary volunteers. This kind of public service is what makes our city great, what makes our city unique, welcoming, vibrant, and surprising. Now, when you look at the word city, it's worth remembering that the Latin and Greek words are not the origin of the word that we use. Polis, the Greek gave us politician and metropolitan and the Latin herbs is recognizable as our word urban. But a city is not descended from place words. Instead, it derives from the Latin word that describes the rights and responsibilities that came along with membership in a community. Literally, we have a city because citizens live here. Cities are the daily expression of the American promise, the place where we live freely and pursue happiness. And just as our founding fathers declared regarding our nation, cities exist because the people in them are bound together by certain obligations, privileges, and freedoms. These bonds change with time and geography and no two cities are alike in what they offer or expect, but the city is always a creation of its people, past and present. So why enter into such an agreement? What do cities offer? Well, in the past, it was pretty clear. Urban living offered safety. Think about those medieval walls that protected folks from marauders. Cities also offered proximity to other residents, goods and services, they chance for exchange, the chance to make a profit. Cities offered cultural advantages too, communal religious experiences and the beauty of a temple or cathedral that no scattered rural population could support. Now during the 20th century, as many Americans chased their piece of suburban heaven, there was some notion that cities had become outdated and that technology and mass production would conquer the city's advantages with regard to proximity and culture. But as Edward Glazer, who calls cities humanity's greatest invention, has remarked, today's cities are thriving despite predictions that technology would eliminate the distance and density advantages that allowed cities to dominate our global society. Instead, we've seen the opposite. High tech craves high touch as in the ultra-hip cities of San Francisco and parts of New York. Screens, in fact, are not a substitute for contact and I see this every day in my office when I'm forced to turn down invitations to speak. While some groups then ask if it's possible for me to provide a welcome or remarks via video, that's really no one's preference. A live person is more desirable, more valuable than an image on a screen and as we are unfortunately seeing here in San Antonio in a very real sense, the digital world can dehumanize us. Of course there are wonderful irreplaceable advantages to the digital revolution that's dramatically expanded our reach during the past few decades. We have greater freedom to explore, exponentially more access to and power to analyze data and to innovate and so many new avenues for human creativity. But, but, people behave differently when they're not physically present in a community. We've certainly seen the downside with horrific cases of cyberbullying here in our community. I don't mean to imply that we don't need to take full advantage of everything offered by the digital world. We do and we will from arts and culture to industry education and economic development, but we do need to balance our virtual experience and that of our children and our students with the experience of being citizens. Remember that without us, the city doesn't exist. In his great book, The Triumph of the City, Edward Glazer also said quite memorably, cities enable the collaboration that makes humanity shine brightly. San Antonio, it's time for us to shine. And that means collaborating to address persistent issues that dull our community's sheen. For example, during the past year, I've been working to create a collaborative effort to improve the lives of young men of color in San Antonio. This initiative started from the White House by President Barack Obama, recognizes that young Latino and Black men are at a much higher risk for poor life outcomes and that investing in their future will return benefits to them and to the larger community. So how do we invest in a young man's life? It's not just a matter of money or education. In my case, my parents weren't college educated, but they were supportive of my education and communicated their expectations of success to me and to my sister. Mom's expectation of success propelled me forward and that's what we hope to deliver through the extensive mentorship component of my brother's keeper. As a mentor myself, I know the benefits that this relationship flow both ways. We help young people see what they can achieve, challenge them to do more and offer a supportive role model. But mentees also help us understand the value of public service and the rewards of building relationships. As a former board member of Big Brothers and Big Sisters, I know that these volunteers make a lasting and positive change in a child's life as do the thousands of volunteers who work with groups like San Antonio Youth Literacy. These are not paid staff or government workers. As de Tocqueville observed in 1830, these are citizens in a democracy working through voluntary associations to ensure that San Antonio offers opportunities for all. The challenge of a democracy is working together to chart a course that truly does benefit the people. That's more challenging than ever right now in American society. The hyper-partisan environment, gridlock in Congress and 24-hour news cycles dissection of every move and comment by public servants have created a climate where elected officials are hard pressed to work together. And then that puts the onus back on the general public, those working at the grassroots level and through those associations described by de Tocqueville to help chart a new course. You, educated, engaged citizens are essential to our success. As our second president, John Adams, told his son, the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen. As a result of my time at our San Antonio City Hall, I can tell you that many have found it's easier to work to advance personal interests rather than substantively addressing tough policy issues. Personally, I remain focused on long-term strategic issues that I believe will make a huge impact on our community's future. But citizens must also demand this kind of change. Let me touch on a couple of key issues where citizens should be engaged and informed right here in our community. First, the city of San Antonio and many other local governments and institutions are working to develop a plan for our physical growth and investment in our future. Essay tomorrow, which includes comprehensive sustainability and transportation planning components, relies heavily on citizen participation. We started from the vision that was expressed through Essay 2020 and then moved towards its practical expression. What should our streets look like? Where will new San Antonians live? For each of the plan elements, such as housing, military issues or green space, we invited local practitioners, advocates and experts to serve as volunteers on working groups and we integrated existing plans from the county, the river authority and other local entities. Now I don't want this comprehensive plan to be something that just sits on a shelf. Instead, it should drive our future community investments in infrastructure and shape policies that create a physical environment to support our vision for a prosperous future. Prosperity that's shared in every corner of San Antonio, not just certain sides of town. Now two weeks ago, more than 75 San Antonians took three hours out of their day to discuss annexation and to formulate a policy position regarding our comprehensive plan and the geographic growth of our city. This level of civic participation is inspiring, but let's not forget that we have a great deal of work to do in one basic area that shapes the public policy discussions for our city and that's voter participation. While last June's turnout was the highest that we've seen in some years, we need to do better. In a few weeks, I'll be convening the Citizens Charter Review Commission, yes, another volunteer group, the same brave folks who proposed historic city council pay and other charter amendments last year. I will be challenging them again to examine how our local municipal government is structured and how we can make it fairer and more representative in the future. Council pay helped move us toward this goal by expanding the range of people who can concentrate on public service beyond those who live at home with mom and dad or retired or are supported by a spouse. We'll have another opportunity to amend our charter in 2017 and it's time to begin the public discussion that's essential to a democratic process. And we have a responsibility to listen to the voices of all the people, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because we can gain a lot of insight that way. So let me close with another story. Think back to the fall of 2005, right after Hurricane Katrina. Two groups were gathered in the common room of an apartment complex on San Antonio's southwest side, along with my Merced Housing Texas co-workers and a group of volunteers. I was meeting with residents who'd been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and were trying to start over here in San Antonio. Merced had mobilized quickly in response to the arrival of these new San Antonians who had come to our city with nothing more than maybe a single bag or clothes or sometimes just the clothes on their back. Like many Americans, I'd been glued to the television for days watching the unfolding tragedy and raging against the ineffective rescue and relief efforts. So I leaped at the chance to help families settle into vacant apartment units that Merced had. So we organized food and clothing drives. We collected lots of canned goods and other staples. We bought mattresses, pots and pans. The residents had moved in a few days before this meeting and we were now convening to talk with them about next steps in their transition. The staff had introduced themselves and laid out our efforts to date and our ideas about what we ought to do going forward. We were kind of patting ourselves on the back on the great job we did, collecting all those canned goods and doing such a great job for these folks in need. But then we asked the families if they had any questions. An older woman stood up immediately and said, thank you so much for everything and especially for all the canned food. One thing, do you all have any can openers? Then we realized that we didn't know everything and I challenge you here in the audience to be that woman. Be the woman who points out that we need can openers or sidewalks or childcare during public meetings or support to ensure that students complete their degree programs or accessible workforce development programs or more transportation options for our community or whatever you see that our community needs. We're all depending on each other as citizens to make our city better. Thank you so much for your time and attention. We have time for some questions so I'd be glad to answer some. There's some microphones in the middle of the aisles. Hi, ma'am. Hi. Is this thing on? I would, I have a question about how the decision process for the way that they've redone the airport and the parking and what we do for the community to focus their airport more on business travel from here rather than just the tourist trade. Thank you. Excellent question. Very timely issue. There's quite a few things I can report. First off, I'll acknowledge that there have certainly been some bumps along the way with our current improvement plan at the airport. For those who are unfamiliar, we are actually doing a major, over a hundred million dollar investment in our San Antonio International Airport to build a consolidated rental car facility. You may not know this because you live here, but for people who are tourists, when they come here, if they want to rent a car, right now they have to get on one of those shuttles, they have to go out to the Hertz or Avis lot, then when they come back, they're confused, they don't know where to drop off the car, so we're building a facility where when they walk out, they can walk straight to the rental car counters, pick up the cars right there because it's a parking deck as well and be on their way and when they return, easily navigate the situation. However, and that project is underway. However, we have, I have heard quite a bit of feedback and been in a lot of meetings with folks about their concerns about the airport in general and the need for us to expand service there in order to meet our community's economic development needs. So a couple of things are going on simultaneously. One that started a few months back is that we convened a task force to look at direct routes that support business development in San Antonio. The one that we had been specifically focusing on was a direct flight from San Antonio to Boston because we have several biomedical companies here that need to get to Boston quickly because that's a hub for their industry. So we've been working on that and actually we have a pitch meeting coming up soon with one of the airlines. The other thing we've been working on for several years has been direct flights into Reagan National Airport in Washington DC from San Antonio. There are some direct flights to Dallas and BWI, but for those of you that go into that area regularly, it's kind of inconvenient to have to maybe ride 45 minutes an hour once you land. So we've been working on that as well. Most significantly, we have changed leadership out at the airport. So we now have a new airport director and we are pursuing quite a few strategies to improve the customer service experience out there and also work in closer partnership with the airline partners so that we can have better services and flights. The chambers of commerce are working closely with us because often we have to provide the business case. They need to help us talk with the corporations about who will travel on those routes should they be created. We've had a couple of direct flights that have been added. Hopefully they do support commerce and not just tourism as well. Hello, Mary. I'm an architecture student undergrad, so I'm kind of like the black sheep in this room, I know. So one of the things I'm kind of interested in design, as an architect, we always design. And I see San Antonio, I actually had a conversation with one of my professors about this the other day. I see San Antonio as this really rich opportunity to really explore and put designs out there. And so I'm wondering for someone who's in the public service, what is the support like? I know there's been projects recently. We had a professor that did a study on the Broadway corridor in Alamo Heights. But it seems like San Antonio is such a rich opportunity with its location and the people that are here. I'm just curious, what are your, I guess, supports like as a designer, what are your? Well, I have a few thoughts on that. First, as a planner, I certainly, what's interesting to me about planning is that nexus of people and places, right? And understanding that people are inspired by the places that they traverse on a daily basis and that their physical spaces can result in different behaviors or outcomes for people. So that's a perspective I bring to the table. I'm really thrilled right now, one of my colleagues on the city council is an architect, Councilman Roberto Trevino from District One is an architect. And so he says that he's been telling people when, again, in the city's history, will we have a planner as the mayor and an architect representing the downtown area for District One. So there's a lot, so he and I talk about, we actually were talking about this today. And his new tagline that he keeps stating, he says, oh, forget about the city on the rise. We're creating a city by design and I love that. I think it's something that's been overlooked for a long time within the city staff. Actually, I had been talking with the city manager. We had an urban designer who was on staff some years ago, a couple of years ago and he moved back to the West Coast and then we kind of had a, I thought we had a gap in our skills set amongst the city staff. So I had been encouraging that we hire someone specifically to start out to look at our Howard Peak Greenways Trails Program and figure out from a design perspective how we could better connect that tremendous asset to the rest of the city. I don't know the status on the hiring on that position but I know it was budgeted for in our last budget. But I think we have to elevate this conversation as a community. There are some folks that are interested in this. I've been encouraged that the folks in the tech industry, tech block, they've been talking a lot more about design and creating spaces that people want to be because they're trying to attract a certain type of talent here and create a certain type of workforce and they find that those folks who work at technology companies are interested in living in cities that have great spaces. I think we have to do a better job of achieving that balance between infrastructure that is cost efficient and infrastructure that elevates us because it will be used more because it's an appealing place for people to be. I think that still we still need to have more momentum in that direction as a community and I welcome the input of design professionals as we seek to achieve that goal. Good evening. For your background in the housing with Mercer housing, what is the city's position with regards to the affordable housing in the downtown area? I know that there's a lot of construction going on with a lot of apartment complexes going up. And so what is the city's position with regards to making sure that there's affordable housing for the low income people in our community with regards to the downtown area? Okay, great question. And I'm gonna try not to go off too long on this because you touched the hot button, I could probably talk about this for another 30 minutes but I'll try to keep it down to five. So as someone who's worked in this arena for a while, I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. When I became mayor, it was very important to me that we start putting some structure to our conversation about housing for our community and not just be reactive. Well, actually when I was appointed mayor, I inherited a committee that Mayor Castro had put in place somewhat, well, not somewhat, in reaction to the displacement of folks from the Mission Park trailer home park. So that committee, actually I'd led that committee after Councilman Bernal left, I was the chair of the committee. And then when I was elected mayor, it was important to me that we established both a housing committee and a housing commission that is comprised of citizens, those volunteers that I was talking about. So we have a couple of new things that are going on where we're formalizing the discussion and having on a regular basis and not just reacting. I cannot say that we actually have a policy. I think that's been part of the challenge, that we haven't had a specific policy. What I will say, and I feel very strongly about this as an affordable housing advocate, I understand how important it is for people to have access to that basic necessity of housing. But I also have seen dating back to my years as a city employee that concentrating all the affordable housing in a certain part of town does not change the environment circumstances there or lead to additional investment or change things for young people growing up in those communities. So therefore, me personally, I very strongly believe in policies that promote the creation of safe, stable, mixed income communities throughout San Antonio. So that means that there should be affordable housing sprinkled throughout the city, but I do believe that we can continue to invest in those areas that have been left behind, keeping in mind that we can't just build units to serve those who are the most distressed because 20 years from now, that's not gonna lead to anybody building anything else in those neighborhoods. So long story short, there's got to be a balance. Also I feel very strongly that as when I was a district two council member, I was begging developers to build something new, build something at a higher price point so we can bring some middle income people back into distressed neighborhoods because as they pay property taxes, that helps the school districts as the school districts has more money, that helps the kids, they create a base for more retail options which creates more jobs for the people that have already been there in the neighborhoods. I feel very strongly about that and it's very distressing to me that in those areas where we've been begging people to come invest for years that some folks are saying, we don't want you here investing. We don't want any new housing in this area. We don't want you to change the dynamics. Neighborhoods do change. So at the end of the day, it's all gonna come down to balance but I will continue to advocate very strongly for affordable, for the inclusion of affordable housing throughout the city, but for us to focus on creating mixed income communities. Yes. Hi, the US police recently been facing national scrutiny throughout 2015 and the game 2016. What are some of your thoughts on the San Antonio Police Department and is there anything you'd like to change about it? Sure, that is an excellent question and actually I am going to give you a little bit of homework. I'm gonna answer your question but I'm gonna give you some homework too because at tomorrow's city council B session we'll be discussing police accountability. It comes on the government channel, you have cable, comes on the government channel, channel 21. We started at 2 p.m. If you miss it tomorrow, you can watch the rebroadcast on Saturday, okay? I know that's how you wanna spend your Saturday watching the government channel, but anyway. So we'll, I'll have more up-to-date information tomorrow as a result of that session but of course I interact with police chief and the city manager regularly and know that Chief McManus has really been very proactive in relation to trying to prevent us from having the type of scenarios that we've seen in other cities. So we have, dating back to the time before I was on the council, we have requested from organizations that specialize in this area of accountability to examine our police force and provide, excuse me, recommendations on what we should do is a report called the PERF report. I can't remember what PERF stood for, I'm sorry. And so we've been implementing all the recommendations from that report. Most recently we made a huge investment in body cameras. So body worn cameras for our officers. So that is being rolled out throughout our community. We're looking at changing some of our training techniques and focusing on communication between the officers and the public. So I believe that we are being very proactive here in San Antonio and we'll continue to do so. I was gonna take two more questions of the lady here and then we have a student from East Central High School who wanted to ask questions. Okay. Mayor Taylor, what is the city or any of the commissions doing to improve not only the high school graduation rate but the college graduation rate in San Antonio? Oh, that's a tough one. That's a good question though. There's a number of things. On the high school graduation rate, I mean, you can tackle that from a number of different ways, but I would say specifically from the city of San Antonio organization, we make investments every year through our budgeting process. We invest about $20 million in services that nonprofits provide to the community and a good portion of that, I can't tell you exactly what percentage, but a good portion of that, we invest in organizations that provide after school care and supportive services and partner with our school districts. The other thing obviously that we as a community decided to do was to try and invest in a good early start through the pre-K for essay program with the idea being that if our littlest citizens get a head start early on, that they will have a greater chance of being successful at those key benchmark grades like third grade and then persisting in order to achieve their diploma. So there's a whole array of things that are happening. You could probably easily argue that there's a lot of things that aren't happening as well. I think part of it, part of the challenge is the need for better coordination between a lot of the various entities that are all trying to do good. On the college side, one of the things, one of my goals for this first term as mayor is to look very, is to work very closely with San Antonio Education Partnership, which is a nonprofit that had been established, I think under Mayor Cisnero, so it shows you how far back it goes, and it was established to provide college scholarships to local high school students in order to help them to be able to afford college and hopefully graduate from college. I think we need to look critically at that program to see if we need to adjust the strategy there based on the rates of graduation of the kids that have received the scholarships. And then obviously my predecessor had also established a cafe college, which is a facility that you can go to for information on how to apply to college and how to apply for financial aid and all those things to help facilitate access to college. We have one more question. Hi, so as San Antonio continues to get larger and larger every year and our population continues to grow, the issue of transportation, not only downtown, but in smaller areas such as East Central, continues to become a harder thing. I know that right now there's only one city bus that runs out to our area, which is 87 and 1604, and that runs about 6.30 in the morning and comes back around seven at night. So there, when students are trying to be involved in extracurricular activities, a lot of them aren't able to actually become involved because they don't have a mode of transportation. So it's kind of hard for them to be involved in that kind of thing. So do you have any plans, as of right now, to kind of fix that and to help increase our transportation in the city and outside of it? Excellent, excellent question. I certainly have plans to work on it. I cannot promise you that it will be fixed in the near future because, let's be honest, the situation that we have today is a result of decisions that have been made for decades here in San Antonio. And we have a city that's the land mass that it is. We decided years ago to severely underfund our public transportation company via Metropolitan Transit, and we have promoted suburban-style development, which is usually auto-dependent. So we're working a little bit uphill, but that's not to say that we can't shift and that we shouldn't look at how we can improve the situation. So first off, we are, as I mentioned, the Essay Tomorrow effort, and I encourage you to go to EssayTomorrow.gov. I learned a little more about our comprehensive planning effort. It does include a multimodal transportation plan. So right now, we have our city staff, consultants, and citizens all working together looking at our transportation challenges and trying to identify what some solutions for the future will be. Now, for some folks, as soon as they hear transportation, all they think of is my car and how can we get more lanes on the freeway? Now, we may need more lanes on some of the freeways. The governor has appointed Bruce Bug, who's a San Antonian, and he appointed him to the Department of Transportation to work on a statewide project on reducing key congestion points in major cities. And we'll work on that, but we all need to understand that adding lanes will by no means be able to keep up with the pace of growth that we're experiencing in our community. So we've got to look at other options as well. We have to look at our development patterns. I say the low-hanging fruit to me is investing in the inner city areas where there's already opportunity for growth. The infrastructure is already there, and people, the bus service usually is better within the inner city, more accessible. There's opportunities to grow within there, to make it easier for people to develop in the inner city so that people can live in those areas. Just take me as an example. I was at a meeting last week where several people didn't make it because of that big traffic snarl on 281, and everyone was talking about their commute horror story. And I said, well, nobody asked me about my commute. I said, that's because I live on the near east side and I work at City Hall. I don't have to get on the expressway to get to work every morning. This meeting was at 7.30, and I asked the driver to pick me up at 7.20. So, and that may not be feasible or real choice for everyone, but if more people made those types of choices, it will relieve the congestion on the roads to a certain extent and make life easier for those who make those choices. The other thing we have to do certainly is to expand the quality and service level of our public transportation, but funding is a critical issue because since the city is so huge physically for Via to be able to provide frequent service throughout that land mass is very difficult. So actually council members Lopez and Saldana are co-chairing a committee right now to look at options for generating more revenue for Via or expanding their revenue sources. And then once we have that information, we'll look at whether or not we want to take up any of those options and what incremental increase in service level we can expect if we make certain investments. So there's a whole lot of things we need to do, not to mention making it easier for people to walk places and bike places. Okay. Mayor Taylor, we'd like to present you with a small token of appreciation for your remarks tonight from our president, Dr. Ricardo Romo. And thank you once again for a most stimulating evening. Thank you. Thank you everybody and just a quick announcement. We're having a little student town hall. It'll be fun and there's food. So welcome to students. It's right down the hall so you can follow all of us and I don't know if the mayor can be there for a couple of minutes, but thank you again so much for coming and please give one more round of applause to our mayor.