 Good evening. Thank you everybody for coming, for joining us for our public safety meeting here for the North, North St. Mary's Strip area My name is Mario Bravo. I'm the council member for district one and I want to thank St. Sophia Greed Greed Orthodox Church for welcoming, welcoming us to their space and providing this to us this evening I'm going to hand the mic over to Father Thomas to welcome us and share a few words I'd like to thank you all for being here tonight and being a part of the community We are a part of the community here and I'd like to make sure that we Enable each one of us to have a voice and to hear each other's voices. It is the name of the church Ios Sophia, which is divine wisdom properly translated Sophia's wisdom and Aya is holy or divine is something that we share between all of us if we Come together in one heart in one mindset. If I would if you may stamp our prayer Blessings our God always now. I'm going to drive it on the edges of agents. Oh, my God Oh, have we came to come from the spirit of truth who are in all places and fill all things the trade group good things in the give-up life I'm going to buy this and cleanse us from every stain. It's ever so gracious. Thank you Father Thomas So this is an amazing turnout I think it lets us know that these are issues that that the community is deeply concerned about and We've got a lot of people standing in the back right now Can we get people who have an empty chair next time to shift raise our hand one more time? If anybody wants to grab a seat, there's a bunch over here as well right up front if anybody wants to Okay, I Want to there's also there's there's water and snacks in the back of the room over there We have state representative Diego, but not who's joined us this evening We're gonna have chief McMintus and city manager Eric Walsh are on their way. Oh All right, so they're coming in here shortly We also have a representative of the public works department if anybody's gonna have any questions of the city when it comes to any of the construction and progress over there, so You know when I first decided to run for this office. I knocked a lot of doors in this area and You know and I heard from many of you about concerns With a variety of issues and you know when I just told my mother that I was coming over here for this public safety Town hall and she said, you know, I knocked a lot of doors over there She wanted to tell me what all the issues are and I said I you know I knocked those doors too. It's like we between the two of us. We heard from almost every one of you I feel like and when I got in and I told Parker Dixon The neighborhood president. I said, you know when I get into office or you know I promise that I will meet with you right away so we can start to address these issues And we sat down and we met and we met with a bunch of city staff and we started looking at what are some opportunities and It's been a little bit slow going but we've heard from you that you want to see some progress now and so this is this is an opportunity for us to refocus I've heard from some of you that you didn't come to previous meetings that we had to talk about this stuff because you feel like some of these issues have been gone and ongoing and Elected officials didn't listen to you in the past So we're definitely here to listen but we're looking for to make this solutions oriented and see how we can make progress and You know get get going now. And so Yes, is the chief here? Okay, so why don't I turn it over to Parker Dixon and he can start do you want to start your presentation? Hi everybody. I'm Parker Dixon. I was recently elected the Tobin Hill Community Association president. I Apologize about our website if anybody's gone to it currently it is down and we are rebuilding it. So We'll have more information on a few in the future on the website right now I'm going to Present something about how how the strip has impacted our neighborhood and I don't want to sugarcoat it anymore it has serious impacts on our quality of life and it feels like we haven't been listened to and I think that We everybody in this room mostly knows what the problems are And I think the city has an idea what the problems are So what I'm going to share is some solutions that I've gathered through the community association and through fellow residents and Whenever you do speak, please Don't be afraid to stand up there and speak your mind and share what you believe the problems are and what you believe solutions are We can't get changed without everyone speaking out to me and vocal about it I'll start the presentation All right, so the purpose of this town hall is to discuss the problems and solutions so So the negative activity and violence emanating from the nightlife activity of the North st. Mary's strip Some of the solutions I've gathered are a residential parking program rideshare program food truck hours of operation and proximity to residential properties Street trash pickup noise compliance and abatement and adjusts a PD strategies The residential parking program we need protection from nighttime commuters This will create the single largest impact for improving safety and quality of life for pedestrians residents and businesses Without residential parking all the other solutions will be undermined The resident residential parking program benefits They have support from the North st. Mary's business association bar and club owners It enhances safety of pedestrians residential properties bars and clubs SAPD It reduces guns Because if you don't have a car you can't have a gun Can't bring it into the bar with you. It's a felony. There's no car to retrieve your gun from it can In theory reduce gun violence It reduces drunk driving we had a Drunk driver drive into one of our restaurants scenes. We've had a drunk driver crash into the barrier at the end of our street My children sleep in the front room. I fear You know, I parked my car at the front of the driveway as just an additional barrier But you know, you shouldn't have to live like that It Alleviates the congestion of our narrow streets in Tobin Hill and on st. Mary's reduces noise on residential streets reduces trespassing and vandalism on residential properties Improves crowd control and makes policing easier The rideshare program Working combination with this it's where the future is headed Downtown and near downtown areas of trying to reduce commuter traffic and encourage ride-sharing and public transportation All the benefits of ride-sharing are the same benefits as residential parking The benefits for business are it reduces liability It reduces need for a parking lot, which we are Very short on we have almost no parking lots over here for the businesses It increases profits with ride-sharing incentives through rewards apps like free bird free bird leans to uber and lift accounts and patrons receive rewards after paying their tab at a bar or restaurant And it shows good faith The business for the businesses that they're being a good neighbor and a good business for the entire city The future operations The food limiting the food truck hours Absolutely no sales after 2 a.m. It keeps people from hanging on our streets until Three in the morning the food trucks don't close until they don't have a customer. So you have people lingering until 3 a.m. And nothing nothing really good happens after 2 a.m. and if you're not living in the neighborhood it's you know You're just loitering a lot of times on the residential streets because that's where you parked And then they leave their trash right there at their car. So it'll help the decrease street trash And then restricting the food trucks from parking too close to residential properties above or say 200 feet There's some food trucks that are within 70 feet of a residential property. So it's Essentially you have food truck in the front lawn And restricting food trucks parking where patron parking and traffic causes roadway congestion We have some food trucks that park in road where the Third patrons are are causing blockages in the roadway and residents can't even get out Street trash pickup Bars clubs and food trucks need to clean the entire link of the link of the strip plus impacted residential streets and clean up occur every night after 2 a.m. Noise compliance and abatement Outdoor implied music along the strip has created an inhospitable environment for some residential properties The most impacted residents are forced to sleep with earplugs or abandon the bedrooms nearest to the south source And in some extreme cases The homes have been abandoned Either sold due to noise or relegated to being strictly an Airbnb In general noise Has also been scientifically linked to increased consumption and aggression Support all the above changes to make patrolling easier. Sorry. I just SAPD strategies Support all the above changes and it'll it'll make patrolling easier More proactive patrolling rather than reactive And they more turn in terms of crowd control Because four to six officers don't stand a chance against five to 10,000 patrons frequenting the strip on any given night I don't know. Diego would like to take over from here Yeah, come on out here Thank you. For those of you Who I haven't met. I'm Diego. I'm the state rep for the area You're sort of asking yourself why is the state rep up here? It seems to be primarily city issues, but For two primary reasons. The first is that I represented this area for close to a decade I care about the neighborhood I care about the people before I was in politics I was a musician and I played on the strip For years. So that place also holds a special place in my heart And I believe that there's an opportunity that we haven't tried yet to coexist What I did Was I realized at a frustration that the reason why somebody you are not in your head the reason why you're all here the reason you're concerned Is not really noise. I'm not saying that noise isn't a problem. Sure it is But your concern is about safety. It's about gunshots. It's about violence It's about the changing of your neighborhood noise when you talk to people When you talk to people it's on the list, but it's not the top three or four And so what I did is I went to residents And I went to bar owners to try to figure out if there's something we could do today That would make a difference not promising that it'll work But something that will change and so I went to some of the bra owners and I said because there's so many bars I think there's 17 How do you know That you're gonna have a bad night Based on something a different bar is doing And they said two primary things the first thing they said was dollar wells dollar wells Is a guarantee that people are going to show up just to get obliterated And that's not good for anybody because they spill out the street and they go to the next bar, right? the second thing they said Was when there's a night not a ticketed concert event, but when there's a night for an ation over that's a recipe for disaster because Those kids are there to make mischief There's tons of fake IV floating around and the rest of the bars have to then contend with that And you know that they can't catch all of them And so I said why don't you try to get your association together and we'll get to the security department And why don't you get your association together and figure out if you can come up With some measures that you wish all the bars did that would make everyone's life better easier and for you guys Safer and and just just to be clear I know there's sort of a weird relationship between the bar owners And the neighborhood there always has been but they've also been able to coexist I don't believe that anyone on either side is bad and violence is not a good place It's not a good place for you to live. I grew up in places like that Up to two years ago. I lived in five points. It's a tough place And violence isn't good for business Usually when they're just shooting outside of a bar or something that bar is gone. It doesn't survive So here's what they came up with And I think you can see it but if you can't see now read to you what they've done And at the bottom of this document of that document You'll see the bars are signed on and I want to be clear Some haven't signed on because they don't have the chance And some haven't signed on because not with this stuff and that's a cause for concern first Who will only admit guests for 21 and over except for ticketed events featuring live music So no more each in and over nights for these bars There are some that didn't sign this just you know No drinks under three dollars on weekends. So no more dollar wells No happy hour pricing after 9 p.m Last call at 1 45 No guests will be allowed inside a bar after 1 3rd So 1 3rd is the cutoff Providing to stay there or go home All staff will complete TABC training and is licensed to sell alcohol All business will post signage for happening weapons of any kind But here's the other part And this chief can talk about this a little bit Both both primary law enforcement agencies in the city the county and sapd They their unions have Elements in their contract that forbid them from being hired by bars themselves To work inside. However This is the north st. Mary's business association and they can hire off-duty officers Now to be clear their experiences and I don't mean to offend anybody But their experiences if you see county sites castle hills People don't respond But a csapd officer or their county sheriff they do and so the association is going to pool their money and hire off-duty officers On the weekends not only to patrol the strip, but I think it's two blocks over on either side because you're having this parking issues. You're having the situations where people were Go to the bathroom in your in your yard knocking over trash cans Your kids are showing up holding a high pyramid and yield that was left etc etc so these are This is what the business association is trying to do. We've been talking about it since January it's it's like hurting cats but As I admitted to someone else we obviously didn't work Fast enough, but I do think that these are not solutions, but certainly steps In the right direction And so I think that if anything there's something that's happened here today That is a step in the right direction and we'll see how it goes But I do think that at a minimum There's something here that generates if not goodwill Some hope on both sides because I do think that It's important that we sort of maintain the community Field we have in this neighborhood that I've come to care about so much I'm happy to take questions. We're also happy to pass it on to the chief of the Eric Yes That's right. That's one thing that you know in the same line This TBC thing educate people Information is a great thing when it comes to this kind of issue people either run around or what to do So I do whatever they think they should do and the last time it's the wrong thing and I can be inspected in this neighborhood So It's also important to point out that Whether it's here or with the barners. I don't have a hammer or a button to push I don't have anything to threaten them with I just said it's it's in everyone's best interest Don't keep things the way they are and try to make things better Passing a law in austin is hard. It was the estate-wide law. So what might make sense for North st. Mary's won't work in fritzburg. So it's challenging But I do think this is a good start. I think your idea is a good one. Yes, ma'am Did you start off this whole conversation with saying that the bars allow people to enter with illegal Identification where they're not 21 and then you start this whole entire presentation with the very first one that says Putting on plus and explain to me how because that's a contradiction in the beginning Sure, I understand. I think the point is that there are some there are some establishments here That have nights that are aged in over nights And so the first sentence is supposed to speak to the fact that the the signs of bars Aren't going to have nights that are for anyone Under the age of 21 the point I'm making about the point I'm making about having nights that are for people who are under 21 Is naturally that lends itself to fake IDs and and and so if you're working the door at a bar There's no way you're going to catch all of them is the only point I'm trying to make It's hard to catch them off. That's all I'm saying. It's sort of the human the human element makes it harder. So if you reduce if you reduce If you reduce even the opportunity To have that many fake IDs in one place by having people work under the age of 21 Well, you also said two blocks this way to cross this way I can tell you I look further than to block and I've seen naked bodies By the way, I am not the rep or the boss I want them together to try to to try to do something positive for your neighborhood because All I kept hearing about was noise and what you're talking about is not noise. She's not even head about No, I know but but we're worried about safety Well, that's just one all talk Right. So let's tackle what we can Noise certainly being part of it, right? Parker had some good ideas about noise. I'm just saying that let's do as much as we can so and Nothing here set in stone if it needs to be three blocks or four blocks You can talk with them. My understanding Parker is that some of those guys are coming to Your community association meeting later in the month and I think that's an opportunity to talk about those finer details So I'm not the author of the document suppose before we go any further I just want to make sure that we have news here So we need to use the microphone as much as we can so that they can pick up the audio Okay, so we're going to do as much as we can to give this to you if you can come up Into an aisle or something that might be helpful as well. Okay, so here's what I'm going to do because I'm trying to be fair I'm going to go one two three. All right. Yes, ma'am System, okay, so I don't live in totally, you know, I live down the street in the one of the terrorist members association My fear is the precedent that this is setting for our neighborhood areas It is It is asinine that there are this many bars in a concentrated area within the neighborhood and like Parker said These property values are going to draw people are going to be moving out and we're going to have vacant houses everything these and The problem is going to get worse and worse and worse I think it's awful and that we're expecting the police to go in here and What you said there's like five thousand and ten thousand people maybe on any given night to ask our police to go in police's situation when Anybody could be Tony the gun now and to say oh you can't bring a gun in here is ridiculous We know that they're going to be bringing guns in and I don't want my taxpayer Dollars that support our police going to police that We need these police within our neighborhoods because the prime element and the criminal element is getting worse and worse With the homeless situation I could go on and on and on About all the problems that this is causing and we need restaurants With maybe a bar. We need restaurants. It closed no way to fill 11 and the city I know there's some city managers in here This this is a policy issue. There needs to be an importance It's just like a school or a church where you if you're at a bar And not a restaurant You don't get to be within so many feet of a residential area These neighbors down here to be held Why included because once those uh the Quarters get done. It's just going to be open season So I can't speak to all of that But the one thing I can't speak to I think and I think you should also talk to the bar owners Is that one of the reasons why they want to hire Off-duty officers is because the ones who are on duty Certainly have to patrol but there's something happens. They've got to go somewhere Because if they get called they've got to go So the the off-duty folks would be dedicated to the area, but I understand you're saying more than that Our way out of this situation Agreed I pray for my safe officer every night. I don't want her being drawn into that He's next than I got you so, um, I guess my comment is that I think it's a little bit If forgive me, I respect the position I think it's a little shameful that we have a state representative Representing the bar association. I know you mentioned that you're not here to represent them But if you're saying that then they're so great and they want to make The residents how come they don't have their own spokesman here? Wait, wait, wait. I hear you So hold on. So there's that there's that aspect, you know, and I just think that um I understand that as far as the medical officials that you're trying to make advance on how things are And you think here that's great. Thank you. I've been here for five years My parents have been here 50 plus years This year this past year and having been by far the worst. Yes that I have We have the burgers like almost every other month and which is ridiculous So my everything is that I just find it interesting that we have a state representative here giving us Uh a possible solution, but yet the solution doesn't include all the marks. So so It's kind of like It's a fair point. I only butted in I only butted in because I wanted something to happen. Otherwise what we'd be talking about Otherwise we'd be talking about what I'm trying to bring Something bring people together so we have something to work off of a step not an answer The second thing is the reason why I'm uncomfortable talking about this is because the bars were asked not to come today They were asked not to come so because I worked on this I'm sort of stuck Explaining the process that we went through say start them with this. They I did the first quarter of it They did the rest, but they were They were asked not to come so that that's why I Did not invite them I I told them not to come so you guys could be comfortable to speak your minds They don't need to be screamed at and yelled at they've heard all I'm not trying to protect them I'm trying to let y'all speak y'alls mind without them snickering in the corners Of the of the broom at everything y'all say Um, we are having another meeting march 17th. They will be there y'all be there too I agree I was just going to help an area that I care about I don't have a role. I have no but I'm just the guy trying to help out Yes Hi guys I'm mark manually. I own brass monkey I'm I'm here. I've been here for a few other meetings And There are some other bar owners here currently restaurant owners So I'm not going to hijack the whole meeting, but I'm here if you want to talk to me after I printed out something that kind of has our bold points For our policies. We're probably the strictest on the strip But I will say even though I own the business I do agree with a lot of stuff that you guys are saying because if this was my neighborhood, I wouldn't want it So I'm here and I've been here talking to parker larkin What can we do as business owners? To help reduce this issue We're not going anywhere. You're not going to go anywhere. Let's work together So I'll be here. I'll stay at the end and we can talk if anybody wants one of these boltons I will be happy to give you one You and then you and then I should probably I got a question for the chief and the sergeant over there I know with the liability issues that you know, a lot of people want Have officers in your um In the bars and stuff like that but From liability Issues it's not practical And uh, is there any kind of program that sapd can Bring to the to the front On the how The bar owners higher security and everything and what's the what standards that they're hired for that they operate Levely across the board and Make it safe for the bar owners in liability and you know once drum asleep Leave because I have I have them in my front yard and I used to do one thing being law enforcement And now it's not my time, you know, because They eventually you're gonna do something and They're gonna Get hurt So, uh, but What type Of information that from what I'm listening to People want to feel safe in this area and People don't feel safe in this area because the drunks now it's not a marks ball Or it's any underball owners fall It's the people that Are coming to get drunk and blitzed at the time and then they bring the issues You know to your department Because you have to deal with these people and you get officers hurt and It's the same. We don't can't you can't make a magic wand that Oh I'm sorry for saying like this, but uh, are you a stupid person? Oh, you're are you coming? Are you a dummy? Are you that you're you're that? You know, there's no way And it's like Any How can you make it easier for the bombers? To to to bring in people that It's going to make the neighborhood feel safer Is there any program that you can think because I know that There's a lot of I'm glad you asked that question because I do have an answer for you Let me first introduce a couple people. We've got Eric Walsh back there city manager the system chief jimmy rass Georgia most close going most close so I guess most of you know him. He's a safe sergeant and over here Which is Maria Villa Gomez? She's a deputy city manager. She's she's my boss so And also she's going to probably hit me when I get close enough to her but retired assistant chief jelvin garcía sitting over there On the audience. She's on the The pastoral board at the that's the church, right? so Let me talk about a couple issues and I'll get to your Point in a minute. Can we pull that? Can we pull the partner? Can you pull the PowerPoint back up on the sapd slide? I've got some comments. I want to make about that slide so More proactive for patrolling rather than reactive and I'm not sure where that came from Why you think that we're just reactive as opposed to proactive because I can show you the stats to show that We are proactive. So that's number one number two Four to six officers don't stand a chance against 5,000 10,000 patrons Neither to 10 either to 20 Stand the chance There's two issues here as I see them And y'all can correct me if I'm if I'm wrong There's an order maintenance issue In your neighborhoods which started this off The drunks the noise the beer cans the urinating and the public the sex between the cars That's one Am I on am I on target? The second one the second one is fear of violent crime Down here on the strip. So those are two issues as I see them One of the ideas that I had and I discussed this with a former council member Was that Let me preface this but with by saying this Police aren't necessarily going to arrest these issues away. It's not going to happen There's too many of them. There's too many people. There's too much alcohol. There's too many guns So police are not going to solve this problem by ourselves But Tell me if I'm wrong The more police you see down here is safer you would feel Yes So So we put Street crimes Up here for quite some time Tree crimes is a violent crime prevention apprehension unit It's not meant for order maintenance problems in neighborhoods. It's a waste of a resource But I put them up here anyway because I knew it was important to you We've got four officers That were thursday friday and saturday night. Are they on sunday night? Do you and sunday night? Four officers That's a drop in the bucket. It's really For for what we're all trying to do here. It's really ineffective, but It's all we can put up here right now But let me put this in front of you So and I and if the this needs to get back to the bar owners And I brought this up to the previous council member and he was unlinked in the one away But suppose Every bar on the strip was required to pay Into a fund to hire security And I I mean, I don't know how much money they could throw into the kitty But I'm sure it'd be quite a bit with all the bar owners. So even if each bar owner hired one It would be I'm ready 17 17 police officers Let it So again the more officers you were you see up here the safer you will feel so My push would be To have to and I don't know how we do this but to require or Voluntel The bar owners you got to chip in and provide security now We are not prohibited. I'm getting the shake of the head back there. Tell me why Are you a bar owner? Okay, I'm cool with that But um Thank you And the construction doesn't help any that doesn't help any Thank you for that I hear you. I I I live right up the street. I know I don't matter if I don't come this way to go home because traffic's too bad on on st. Mary's But let me let me say this that We are not prohibited From working for the bars. We are prohibited from working in the bars We're not here to enforce house rules in abc establishments But we can't work outside And there and there are officers who do that around the city right now just not inside but There needs to be an amalgam of solutions to fix this Because we can't do it and I'm not going to blow smoke in here and tell you we can And tell you everything's going to be all right But we will work Oh, here's the other thing So I wasn't aware that Someone has suggested sheriff's deputies work here Of duty wasn't aware of that and I'm not I'm not in favor of it If we're going to have officers here needs to be SAPD I don't like to mix and match police departments Because standards are different Supervisions different protocols are different And I don't want to be in that in that situation If something were to go wrong here and and we've all got to come together It doesn't happen that easy when you've got two different Jurisdictions working here. So if there are to be another police officer or a police officer's working on duty In my opinion, it needs to be SAPD And we don't want to be cut out of that So that's why that's why uh, is everyone know I'm sure you probably do is everyone know How the murder occurred the other night or last week to two of I'm getting some doughs. So this is this is what happens 90 percent of the time across the city everywhere Just like the one up on Blacko and buddy posted the other day when Uh, the guy was shot and killed in his house because there was a shootout across the street between 15 and 16 year old kids so 215 in the morning Uh, a few people are standing outside the bar in the parking lot And one dude looks at this girl And her boyfriend doesn't like the way he looked at him and he goes and gets a gun and comes back and kills them That happens all the time and the and the rhetorical question I'll ask you is how do you stop that crap? How do you stop this? That's exactly right. You can't Well, let's let's not let's not I mean that's not that's not going to be the solution here at gun control There's a lot of guns out there There's a lot of people out there who shouldn't have the guns that are doing this crazy shooting I guarantee you that guy who shot and killed that guy last week or two weeks ago did not have a chl And he was not carried legally. Yes, ma'am. How about some good job? People do Let me let me take this back for a second Let me let me take this back for a second So let me just do a check in with a crowd. Okay, so raise your hand if you live in Tobin Hill Okay, that's good. Put your hands down All right. Now raise your hand if you've lived in Tobin Hill less than five years Okay, you put your hands down. Let's raise your hand if you lived in Tobin Hill for 10 years or more All right, raise your hand if you've been in Tobin Hill 15 years or more Okay I just wanted to check in on that. So you all remember So a lot of you remember that that murder that happened in the 1990s that murder happened at Kato's O'Brien's restaurant Right. My dad built that restaurant My uncle who also named Marty Bravo. He was managing that restaurant. There was somebody stole a woman's purse and The boyfriend or the husband tried to stop them and the guy pulled out a gun and shot him dead right there And then the business died on the strip and I so I remember that I was You know, I was like right out of high school back then. I didn't live here I lived here in san Antonio, but I didn't live in this neighborhood But I remember the effect that it had I remember the effect that it had on the restaurant that my uncle managed and On the the neighboring businesses in this area and and I've talked to We had a town hall with just the the same marriage strip business owners a couple of months ago And we did a check in with them and a lot of them were concerned about that I don't know mark was concerned about that. There were several others that were concerned about that too and And there has been publicity about the recent shooting, right? There's zack over here with the news Every time there's a murder. He called me and he wants to interview me, right? And it's there is it's getting publicity We haven't seen the activity die after that though, and I'm not sure what's why I'm not sure what's different I can I can tell you why it hasn't died You know, you may have people who aren't going to go to a restaurant because there's a violent act that occurred there I get you Richard You may have arrest people not doing a restaurant because of that But when you got a 20-something year olds coming down to a bar without they didn't stop them They don't care Richard. What do you got? This is the biggest this biggest gathering we have had in Token Hill. I'm a resident of 54 years in this beautiful community I'm a little disappointed that we had State of the state officer leave this discussion this this problem that we have we know what the problem is It's alcohol and the content of the people that go there Now chief You're my buddy and my buddy But the last meeting we had at the eco center and said san Antonio college You were presented the same thing you've been presented today and nothing has happened chief We were we told you you yourself presented a young man Captain you said he is formulating a plan to for st. Mary's protection Chief all you have to do is get police officers in the presence of st. Mary's street and this will be minimized Here we have a state representative Do we have Texas alcohol beverage commission here? They're the laziest group of people in the state of Texas We had a 20 year old kid drop dead on with french street 20 year old because he was drunk and who's to blame for that? You know who the little waitresses and the bar owners that don't care they're looking at the dollar bills And they don't monitor. I mean you can see a person that's half drunk and they're still serving more more drinks That's it and and you know what I need for you chief is to get me put more police officers on st. Mary's street Close the food at 12 o'clock Oh Sir, where am I going to get more police officers? You've got the city manager. You've got my idea here. You've got the funds. Don't tell me you don't have points to police officers Yeah, I go to a restaurant and I see five police guards beating them. I don't like you anymore Richard A couple of comments. I think I think it's not going to be just one thing. I think it's going to be multiple I think Not allowing cars to park on the roads is one because then they will have to ride chair I suggest that each bar has a bouncer that has a device that checks for weapons Because if they can't go to the car and get it and they're checked at the bar, then they're going to leave it at home Um, they'll probably won't stop the alcohol that I'm curious I've traveled to utah and anywhere you go where you drink alcohol They scan your ID. So if you get into an accident or you commit a crime Your information is documented at that bar. Is there anything that we're doing to maybe implement a similar system? Thanks. Hi, my name is Nikita. I've lived in this neighborhood for 37 years And I'm like really happy to see all of y'all civic-minded people but I want to I want to say something here You mentioned something about homelessness and crime and those things are directly correlated with people Who are struggling to survive and we are on the precipice at one of the worst financial You know crises of our time because of COVID And if we shut down this whole economy That puts more people out of job and more people homeless What we need is affordable housing and free public transportation, which would help, you know drunk driving But I think having compromises here. I think the bars have brought some great things and thank you, Diego For being such a great moderator here. Like there are some You know, there are some residents here that don't think that the bars are a negative thing I worked at joey as well as going to college. This is an important area to me I grew up there five years old This place has importance Hey Richard, I met with a large community group I don't know maybe maybe three years ago two years ago um Somewhere right around here north of st. Mary's And we came up with a great plan Uh, we executed we ran it by the community before we executed it. We got suggestions from them I don't know if anybody was in that meeting um Joe frankie, where's joe frankie? That was how two three years ago So we we executed that plan and we we had all kinds of stats arrests Tickets and you know what changed Not a damn thing Not a damn thing so You know You we've got two worlds here We've got the world of the of the residents and we've got the world of the bars And when those two worlds collide, this is what happens And and again, I I don't know what the immediate solution is Except to try to make you feel safer by having more visible cops there and I will say it again And richard, I love you like a brother, but I don't have I don't have more cops to throw up here I just don't have it there are there are Other areas of the city that are having the same kinds of problems you are but even worse violence But you told me that captain rovingus or ramirez was Formulating a plan from the last meeting we had we hadn't heard anything about the plan I don't even know who captain Ramirez is But I don't know who captain Ramirez is Got the wrong name, but I don't know the name I remember he was sitting in the back in a dark suit and and you introduced him at the new captain It was going to formulate a plan for st. Mary's because we That was I don't know six months eight months ago. We missed it. Richard. You're a little bit older than me. I think but But my memory's going too. So I don't remember that Boy Just a quick a quick side note to recenter I think the chief and you guys have some good suggestions. I wanted to point something out here The second to the last bullet point Is exactly what the chief recommended Which is people pooling their money together to hire off duty I don't think it matters to them or anyone else if it's if it matters to you that it's sapd I don't I think that's a detail but that that second to last bullet point is The bar owners pooling their money together and being responsible for hiring Off-duty in this case of the sapd officers in significant numbers to patrol not just the strip A radius that is is to be determined. So The more suggestions you guys give the more we can do but again This we're just trying to get to a point we can start tomorrow With something better than right now I don't think these questions are for me, but Okay Yes Those of you who know me I run the state well, I'll I'll work on that for sure Yes, I think we all need to give richard a hand who is one of the best architects in the state of terry I'm who has designed a bunch of the buildings all the more say mainstream My name is james likes my office is actually adjacent to demons My wife and I about 10 years ago moved to the doping hill neighborhood specifically 38 years old To live by decimating my life. I think year by year It has gotten better and better with great businesses like sings Vietnamese coming in slackers coming in great food to the neighborhood and you know for people in our generation This is like people want to move to the urban core, you know, it's famous local brewery I think the businesses that are on the North St. Mary strip. Although there's a little bit This is why we're here. I think they really feel a lot to make our country our city better And uh, I think we should be working with the business owners can't even have that somebody who lives in the neighborhood to work this third Okay, I'm going to do one two three Thank you so much for being here and facilitating this for us. I don't know how that happened, but here I am No, no, no, this is great. The one thing that I wanted to say I was anxious to say this is it The biggest thing is not on there and if you can get the people to recognize that they They go with their certificate of occupancy in places. You can only have 15 it will some of that Including the drug stuff. I think that would be a tremendous help that they're every certificate of occupancy Do you remember people who can be in there and they will say yes, we will do that to our owners And I think that's something that that would make a tremendous difference here and thank you again, sir I'm not sure how I repeat The the bar owners rep but um, I know that that on the 17th There is going to be another meeting And I suggest I I know they're going to be there I suggest all of you are there because the more we can get people to actually talk to each other I think the more progress we can make in a short period of time if you want to keep waiting for months and months fine But if you want things to happen tomorrow Then let's start moving and then the bigger scale issues we can do it. So I've got you and then you man. Yes, sir um I've been here for about two and a half years So far I live actually a quarter mile up on east russell And over the course of the last two and a half years I've seen Like when I first moved in there wasn't really that much over spill of people going up the road Lately every weekend there's drunks in front of my house. I mean they're spilling a quarter mile up the road, right all the way to mccullough Right. I saw it last weekend. There was a guy that was got run over because he was so wasted trying to cross mccullough by himself You know, so it's definitely getting worse and you know, I'm really glad you came back to this slide Actually, because I was wondering to me no drinks under three dollars a weekend. That's weak, right? We should be at least five dollars You guys need to start charging coverage. You have five to ten thousand people coming per night You're making the money you can do it. You can start charging cover You can you know, even even if it's just for guys charge guys ten dollars to walk in Five dollars to walk in a park and five dollars a minimum of a weekend for drinks I don't know how to run a board gotta make it more expensive I couldn't tell you that's a good idea or not the only thing that I can say Is that when I asked residents and bar owners what led to bad nights? They said dollar wells So if the if the price point is wrong That's something to bring up. I I mean bad lawyer and a dj. I don't know how to do this. So That might be a great idea. I don't know, but it's it's worth the conversation Yeah, um, we'll get back to the questions, but I just want to address this So I as your representative your city council representative what what our office has done to date is We've stayed in close communication with your neighborhood leadership, right? And we've heard about Issues with people, you know who park in the neighborhoods they go They drink they have some of them have too much to drink and then they go back into the neighborhoods And that's where a lot of problems occur, right? So what we've done is Um, this the city has engineers who are on retainer and we've secured A contact with one of them to do a parking study and you can see the map right over there That's the first area that was proposed I've actually asked them to To expand that area a little bit and we're going to do a parking study and we're going to look at Where are the opportunities if if a if one of your streets is narrow enough you can do no parking on that street If it's not narrow enough then what you can do is You can do residential only parking during limited hours And so we're gonna get you know, we're gonna get more input. We already I've already met with that engineering firm your neighborhood leadership met with them last night to get their input and We're gonna we'll bring them here on the 17th So they can get input from the broader community and you all can all weigh in on that We can hear from you and they're gonna the city manager and his office has agreed to fast-track this study So we can get it done quickly and we can see how soon we can implement Whatever it is that we come, you know that we come to a consensus on based on what you all want And so we'll see how quickly we can implement something to that regard Go ahead. Thank you I would say to bring it back to parking too because I believe that like Parker's presentation says most of our issues start Start with parking not only the violence that's happening, but you brought up public safety issues too and I had to leave Late in the night from family emergency and it took me six turns to get out of my my driveway Um, and it was not easy and nightly I see fire trucks and ambulance going down the street multiple times a night That are sandwiched in by cars and I can't imagine that there's not um, you know Issues that happen nightly with people meeting emergency services And all the cars on the street and and it all goes together and all ties together with the violence that we're seeing With the vandalism that we're seeing And the trashy of our neighborhood that we're seeing and so I want to know How will you get this parking done? I'm glad to hear there's a study going on But that's the most important issue to me and I want to know how to push that through I have just got two points one for our chief If you have an off-duty officer Who is not working in the club but outside of the club and rolling around If that officer It becomes abundantly clear That people are coming out of the bar Completely obliterated Falling down come Can they not turn around and make the report to TADC? Yes, they could Okay, absolutely Okay, and then my my other comment is on our parking study And this is a little frustrating because we have been talking about this parking for years We have actually been staying up at night on our streets Counting cars and I know that we sent you those numbers Every single Monday I don't know When you have two and three and four hundred Cards going down the street in a single night Where there are 30 houses And one side you can't park I hope your parking study doesn't take another couple of years to tell us That a lot of these residential streets simply can't have parking Yeah, let me let me let me say this and you're probably not going to like me for saying it I am not so convinced that parking putting on parking signs has got to fix this We have we have Toad trucks stationed on the nice set That we have officers working here ready to tow And we tow and we tow I could give you the numbers of excuse me I could give you the numbers of tickets that we've written the cars we towed And hasn't fixed anything No, it has not and I want to give you these numbers Just just for fyi Since we're talking about TABC So the past few months TABC certified bar checks 31 noise nuisance meter checks 23 checks three violations TABC administrative violations 237 Overserving operations Five checks three residents for over serving. So we're hitting all corners of this Nothing's happening in impact And and again, I don't think that putting on more parking signs or restricted parking is going to stop it And I I don't mean to bring that bad news, but that's just my feeling Let me just touch on parking one more time. Um We're moving in that direction. I and when I sat down last week with city staff I said, you know, I've been in office just over eight months And I said I want this done In the first year that I've been in office and they said well councilman, you know, we can have the study done We don't know if we can get all the signs and get them put in place whatever their supply chain issues You can't get anything more than stop signs right now because of the supply chain issues or whatever And I said, what about outside vendors? And I said, okay, we'll look at outside vendors But that is my goal to get this done because I've heard from so many of you that that's what you want That's what I'm working towards and I'm I'm pushing staff. I'm pushing the engineering firm to fast track it Thank you Get you next I'll keep you short. I live I live here for the past five years. I love the strip I like drinking on the strip responsibly, but I agree with some comments that alcohol consumption and excessive drunkenness People like that big time excessive drunkenness is kind of out of control Just the other day, uh, I was at a bar that's not known for being crazy But we had to buy an Uber for someone who is stumbling didn't even know his own name We had to buy him a bridge at home I want to get credit Sounds weird because razz won't be party's heart, but I do know that their bouncers will keep a lot of crazy people out I like the idea of holding Drunk people out of ours that all the bar in the strip should have a stricter requirement getting in and uh Chief who just mentioned tvc violations and you know, we have laws just like the noise. We have laws We have ordinances If those ordinances are being broken And the cost is too low. How do we increase the cost? Can the city take Those reports from tvc and amplify the fees or our penalties for violations repeated violations Oversurvey or underage drinking. I don't know but excessive drunkenness is the problem One, I don't know why we're still living at this one slide. Hold the mic up I don't know why we're still living at this one slide that the state representative put up I think the answer is on parkers probably first or second slide the parking at the street chief He started off by explaining how to murder happen last few weekends ago You know, you said he went and got his gun How many Where did you go get it? Park So if you don't have parking on the street or if you don't have parking Where they get me done? Yeah, it's most of the bars of brass monkey. What do you what security do you have? Wands Hats hat downs that that could be the pain but Cars like bar, I think are where the guns are stored and if there's an issue that's where they're getting I think you would agree with that. They're coming from the government. If they're taking a mover or lift, they're not gonna They're not gonna come to the bars with the gun. I mean, it just doesn't make sense It's an altercation Right, they get too drunk But what do they have a car a guy so I don't want to get into gun rides or anything like that so practical You know Way to address this and I think that slide says it all right there And I I really think that the most of the comedians people that live, you know, I don't agree with that Well, um, I live in this neighborhood and I say I'm absolutely against any parking permits And I'll find anything I possibly can to make sure they don't happen because I know what that's gonna do Like you said people come down here. They park their cars How do you think people are going to go to these businesses? Most of these people that are going to these businesses drive down here in their cars as we know I don't want to kill all the businesses for I know this way it sounds a little cold But for a very statistically small amount of violence when you look at the number of people You can laugh all you want, but the numbers are statistically true The kind of number of people here to compare to the number of violent incidents It's a very very small percentage far under one percent and we should not be punished We should never punish every single business on the street, perhaps with almost inevitable closure Just because of that few individuals that are married So I want to point out that the North St. Mary's business association and the bar and club owners all support presidential parking And so the worry about killing their businesses the businesses aren't worried about killing their businesses They actually think it can help them flourish My owners I talked to you didn't even know that was happening and I talked to at least five A lot of time in every single one of them. So yeah, they we know what's happening as as a bar owner You know, and we were worried with the construction You know brad punky. We were worried. This is going to kill our business with all this construction I wasn't about it. I'm about the beautification of the neighborhood, but I was scared Actually, it made no impact So most of the operators here don't care if we get rid of the parking because there is no Impact that we can see I can't speak for every bar owner restaurant But for someone that's been in the nightclub business for 21 years I think that if we did have Some areas that you weren't a lot of part More rideshare or some magic parking lot that we could put somewhere Um, I think that would resolve a lot of things the the things that you love And you and the bars and the restaurants you love they won't go away. It's it's about the operator Right, you have good operators and you have bad operators, right? So if you have a person that Starts a restaurant a bar Or another business and says I'm not making enough money And now I want to be a nightclub That's a whole different animal Whole different set of responsibility And you have to have a permit That states that you are a nightclub from the part of the apartment every year. I paid $350 And it states that brass monkey is a nightclub If you're a restaurant that all of a sudden throws a dj in there or a bar and now you're trying to be a nightclub You're learning curve of understanding that animal affects every single one in this room You guys are the ones that get hurt for it because they don't know what they're doing They're doing their best to learn and try But there will be problems you have to have the experience Especially in something in this kind of climate on st. Mary's I think if they Learned a little bit. I've offered my services. Hey, I'll give you the advice I'll tell you what we can and cannot do and then we could make it a little bit better You know again good operators bad operators. So that's my story I'm going to respond to that too a quick Just a moment over here with in the green has had her hand up for a long time. So, um, yeah, we you know, we had a A mini town hall meeting with the business owners Just a few months ago and we ran this by them and I can say every business owner that came was okay with and there is You know, there is a local business owner that has a large empty lot and they intend to turn that into a parking lot So that's going to create some parking And so, you know, I have had people suggest that maybe um The business owners get together and they lease the parking lot from a tri-point in the evenings And on a shuttle service where you can have those little those long golf carts and they just run up and down the strip And then but everyone's far over there Um, so that's another thing that's been proposed that that business owners can consider Let's go ahead and go over here and thank you for waiting patiently Yes, I Understood that this was supposed to be about the gun violence and I haven't heard that much talk about the guns I mean, it's too easy for these people to get a hold of guns. How are they getting a hold of guns? So that's not a municipal issue. I can hand that over to the state representative I I am not going to make a causal connection here, but I will say to your point sir that We just passed permitless carry in texas Which means that you can I did but the texas legislature passed permitless carry and what that is My point is Permitless carry allows anyone now If they're if they're if they pass their background check They can buy they can buy a gun keep a gun open carry keep it in their car without a license Without training It's just you pass the background check. You have the gun. It's in the car. It's on your person. That's it I'm not saying that that's the reason why this is happening I am saying it certainly doesn't help That and that and that passed and became law in september and if you look at the back of your flyer You can see somewhat of a lineup Yes, ma'am I don't know if it would or not. I mean that's something that we could that we we'd be happy to explore That's something that the neighborhood supports then It's something we could explore Back building And What I've always wondered is I do other racial lady graces till two o'clock so I'm coming back this way and I see everybody leaving They're all drunk Why don't they have people that please part at uh at the why or down the post office and stop them And and you know you cut down your drinking if you start you're pulling those people over and you make a lot of money to the city Right so people you just pull up the people that curse them down my street. I look great 100 miles out So This is a pretty big city, right? And there are bars all over the city, right? We got a lot You got a lot here. There's a lot a lot everywhere we work in the highways And our dwi unit and every night They are packed into the magistrates office doing processing drunk drivers, so You get them here. You get them somewhere else. I mean, they're going to get caught up or leaving here Really drunk for the most part and but Well, we're not We're out on the highways So I mean I don't want to argue with you about where we should be We're out in the city and we make a lot of arrests Should we come here instead of a robot? Can't do that guess a lot but I'll check with the dwi unit see if they want to hang out here It's not about generating funds. It has nothing to do with generating revenue. That's not why we arrest people I don't doubt it I Killed yourself or you're gonna kill somebody else and then the girl came and thank you later. I didn't care I hear you it happens it happens a lot. I understand that Understand that How you doing? Hi, my name is Joe. I'll be right here on my stream I moved here 46 years ago Doing family and it was a nice night with it back then I grew up on the west side. I grew up with gangs shooting statutes and I got away from all that to get the better neighborhood vegetable All and she's coming back to me. We got shootings every weekend somebody party happy with a gun fired them gun every weekend on Sundays I see them. I see police officers But then they don't stop I don't know what the deal is. It's hard to see if I know that because I know a couple of officers Got me upset because they come to you and it's as well. It's up to my discretion. What do I do? What do you mean it's up to discretion? Is there a science? See the ordinances? You need to do something You know, you don't sit there in this on your on your car and decide It's up to you what you want to do. Yeah, and that's not right because we are taxpayers You know, you're supposed to protect us Yeah, and that happens a lot of it and I know we have a problem there one police officer here that It's not very nice to the neighborhood Even today in the one time saying, you know what? Oh, but before that we put fresh hands out To keep all his cars away from former neighborhoods Two weeks ago. I had a young kid 20 years old Passed out in the front yard. It's not the first time either Yeah, I asked permission from his officer. Can I talk to him? I asked him if they hold or he says 20 years old So what do you get your views from in the corner? I don't want to mention the bar in the corner We stood there for not going to have waiting for the parent or a friend to come pick you up I said, how can we arrest it public intoxication? You know, this doesn't happen. I mean that if you don't arrest this kid You're gonna continue doing this stuff Yeah, they're gonna see you know, I've had people not Down almost my doors on doors not gonna win doors. I think that's things stolen from the front yard I've had kids peeing in my yard. I have a grandson that has to pay in the front yard How you know, we don't like kids paying in front of you know our yards or all this urine around there Yeah, it's that you know We have to have some kind of protection from this to me all this falls on the shoulders of the bar owners because it's their customers and I know because I Have taken a TBC test and one of the things from a TBC TBC test is that you stop or stop selling With belligerent drugs once they start noticing that there are way over serve you need stop serving them And is that happening? this kids I mean Yeah, you lot of people, I don't know, uh Right in the street right here It's so bad We're prisoners of our own houses at night We can't go out there cars going 60 second mile per hour a lot of music boomboxes Yeah It's nothing to be done. We're asking about street bombs and they said well, they can put street bombs but it's too short like that To me it says it's it's embarrassing For us now they've been in this neighborhood. Yo, I'll be honest with you. I'm fixing my house itself. It's tired and shit I'm tired of getting sick already Yeah, that's how bad it is Yeah, 46 years in this house. I love this neighborhood but now I can't stand it Rick we had somebody back here with their hand up Uh, we bought our house a little over three years ago I was wondering either anecdotally for some of the operators here or for the city If they've noticed that there's been an increase in volume of people here that is also correlated to a lot of the issues that we're seeing And that's something that you can address, you know We brought up occupancy limits and things like that Has that been explored discussed is there an ability to investigate going forward? So pre covid we had um About 40 21 to Like 31 And the rest were older because we do 80s and 90s After we could open during the pandemic That went from 21 to 31 90 percent All the older people stopped supporting it because they were afraid to go out And the younger kids Just came in droves and they're fearless. They don't care so covid weather Crime they don't care and they're gonna come So what that means for an operator like me I put another responsibility on my shoulders because i'm physically there A dj to 80s and 90s i'm there one of the dj's so i'm there Knowing what's going on so I can see it um, so we aren't getting a bigger volume and so we hired more security inside Because of the shooting that happened. We hired two more uniform on the outside My brother-in-law is a sheriff and it's like hey can you See if we can get people down here and and we can't but McManus, I definitely want a full number of a contact someone that we can hire sapd to come down. I would be more than happy I'd rather have the sapd in the sheriff So I appreciate that but like I said before we'll take up your time. I'm staying after so we can have some conversations Hello, I was wanting to eat stewie across from high tones And there is a building next door to that. I understand that the entire High shaped corner has been bought now by investors And they want to make the white house with these called the white house restaurant into a bar Is that happening? I try to Send my Personal feeling that I don't need any more bars crossed through from my house I've had poor quality of life since high tones opened My dogs are harassingly I get broken bottles thrown into my yard I've been reported to the city because my dogs bark Because I have people at three in the morning putting their hands over my fence And trying to antagonize some dogs So now I bring them in at night Well, how's that going to help me when the people come after the bars are closed and they're stealing from my yard Because my dogs can't do their job I find it very frustrating that We've been living in the neighborhood. We follow the rules. We park where we're supposed to park We do what we're supposed to do and we have people coming from all over the city They want to do things however they want to do it and there's little to no consequence There was a huge fight outside of my house ended up in my yard 12 people involved One kid was getting pummeled by six others by the time the police finally got there I thought they're going to kill him. It was bad And they did not do anything about it except for dispersant They didn't recognize anybody They didn't arrest anyone. They didn't take any names and that same night we had a lot of shooting It could have been involved, but we'll never know So then when I tried to call TABC to follow up There was no record because no one was arrested So as a homeowner and a person actually called the police I was not given the option to say I want something none about this Where TABC is going to have a record I wasn't given that option and I don't understand what I need to do To make my house safer. That is not the first bloody fight And if they're going to open another bar across the street directly across the Street from the house, where are they going to park? Where are these people going to go? And am I going to have to stand till three in the morning dealing with these people coming up onto my property? I don't think that's fair either. I pay a lot of taxes Huge amount of taxes and I do not feel like I am being represented I brought this up Years ago when I was first having problems with high tunnels And I was told the same very strip is a unique part of the city. No one else has anything like this and it's not going to change Well, here we are It needs to change. Thank you I need this here. She's our director of zoning and planning. Have you seen uh zoning an application for zoning change there for the White House to go from our central bar Is that the house that was directly behind high tones? Okay, they did attempt to do that. I think um, they came through the community association for that They were denied At zoning to turn that into that Because they were attempting to actually create a food truck court in that property And bring several food trucks onto that line I just want to bring up a point that that might be something to look into uh, I've seen recently on On tv, actually, and I went to youtube and some other Videos and they were talking about the sixth street in austin, which has been there for years or something and Of course, they've had a lot of lines here lately all of a sudden all of a sudden austin is scrambling they're going to be putting in uh Descinated areas where they can park ambulances and have a long portion of the stage And this is how you make the awesome people. I think they have meeting meeting offices there every night They close the street and I really feel that in the future As it was back then that this stakeholder strip would actually close on halloween and things like that And going forward this is already bringing, you know, five or ten thousand people a night It's going to be way more than that And it's it's going to get to where it's going to be. Uh, I just feel in the future It'll be st. Mary's is closed on Friday saturday. You'll have to find another way out of the neighborhood And uh, so that's something that might might be something to look into also is how is austin handling there Do they have thousands of people every night? And uh, and all of a sudden it's it's just as violent as here It's great. It's actually expanding out into their city Thank you for that. So we actually have a new Policy policy staff member in the district one office and yesterday I asked him to start looking into what they do on 6th street in austin and find out, you know, how many people they have That are visiting that area every evening and how many police officers do they have staffing it so we can have something to compare it to Okay, so he added to that that that one difference One key difference is that 6th street in austin is a downtown business district So some that's something that hopefully we'll be able to address with uh, with limited park Hi there, uh, philip brown. We uh, we live just on the edge of money this stuff. Um two houses down from bar borrow And we feel like kind of spirits with you guys because We deal with a lot of the same issues now you would brought up that Uh, a lot of this was on the operator. It's good operators and bad operators I would share with you that The owner of bar borrow Has been involved in violence with us He decided for criminal mischief He also owns a lot of bars on north st. Mary's and He's going to be your incoming president for your Owners association This guy's scary. He's a bad bad operator Let's let's make sure we get to the people who haven't had a chance to speak first And uh, one of the reasons I moved here was because it was a five or eight When I could walk to many things like restaurants and churches within intended radius Um, I think also saw potential for the neighborhood I saw a lot of real homes going up. I saw a lot of homes coming up I saw the beautiful girl I saw all this and this is one of the reasons I moved here Want to see is I don't want to see a reversal I want to make sure that all the all the conversations have been asked for being constructive And I want to make sure that those are the takeaways that the constructive conversations are taking place in the I don't want to see those business owners negatively impacted to the point where they have to be the strip and then we're left with bearing Space because what you're you're seeing is you're seeing a lot of people need in for a reason Because they're seeing the potential of this neighborhood And you're seeing people you know you grow them from the color going out or town homes going out across from gasoline stations Because they're they know that the prices of the neighborhood is going to increase and it's it's increasing my block 20 percent of two and a half years of this year So I just want to make sure that already historically the business is the last you want to see is I know you see more homeless moving into that space. So I really appreciate the great community church for letting us have it closing out Good evening. My name is james board of the power lady of sorrows I live there at the corner at that retirement facility Magnolia and namesport So, you know where I'm coming from It's for a shutting an area down not a good idea because once every day monday through friday Right at school is everybody comes to pick up their kids that whole country is shut down You can't leave parking lots. You can't get into the parking lot. You've got to find something else to do As far as gunshots right there in the corner where you can keep high of sorority houses in the neighborhood And you can hear gunshots two or three o'clock in the morning. You call 911 They'll check on it tomorrow when the sun comes up Where's the gun? They're all kinds of problems over there Good luck to you. You've got a big job. Thank you I've lived in this neighborhood 52 years And I've seen all the changes and yeah, it's pretty bad when people are Devocating in your front yard Threatening you and then you can have borrowers threatening you and say that nothing can be done about it Because I pay more taxes than you Upsetting to hear people talk to you like that when you've been here 52 years and disrespecting like that You ask any of my neighbors anybody come in here acting like that. I stand up to them. I don't care who they are I've heard people threatening to shoot me Go ahead. You know where you know where I live And it's pretty upsetting but what I don't understand There's a lot of these bars are still open. Yeah back in the 70s Some of these places were open, but it was nothing like what it is now the occupancy I don't understand why the city allows them to be open When you have to have proper parking for your customers If you have so many occupancy you have to have at least what 50 parking lots That's what I don't understand why they allow them to still be open all because of the tax money Oh, let's let's risk people's lives for that You know all the word all the words that they live in the neighborhood feel threatened You can't even go out pretty upsetting And I don't understand why they allow these bars to be open in the first place If you can't provide parking for your customers, you shouldn't be open regardless of how the city thinks about it or feels about it or tax money or whatever Whoever you have in your pocket They shouldn't be open On a different note, I just want to thank parker An incredible amount of work that he's done. I'm very sure Parker has really stayed on top of this And I want to well I want I want to thank the chief police for coming I want to thank all the representatives who are willing to show up This is a lovely neighborhood We've lived here almost 30 years And I really hope we can work something out whether they have A lot of people have already flipped houses sold houses trying to get away from this situation And I just hope that doesn't that isn't the way the neighborhood ends up going Because it is a lovely 100 year old neighborhood I'm not running from this neighborhood I've only been here for two years. I'm not running from this neighborhood. It's the best neighborhood in San Antonio Where you can walk everywhere There are good businesses on the strip. There are good bars on the strip I don't want to kill the strip. None of the things I propose are to kill the strip It's to make the strip work better. It's to make the neighborhood work better I want to be here. I want to die here. I don't want to die from a gunshot wound But I want to be here. I have three kids. I want to raise them here I want them to go to Hawthorne Elementary. I want to walk them to school every day Now I don't want to have to walk past a vodka bottle or broken beer bottles or used condoms so I know that it's tough To tolerate what's going on and still have these conversations with the bar owners But we have to keep have where we can't just get the pitchforks out and you force them to leave You know the best thing we can do is keep having conversations and understand that We want to be a good neighbor and we want them to be a good neighbor back Thanks, I think we're about to wrap this up. Let me say that I don't want to shut businesses down either But I also want to protect your quality of life And that's why we're here today Um, I want to thank everybody who showed up I want you to know that we put more effort into this than we have in any other neighborhood for any other town hall Our office printed up a thousand flyers because we we had heard from enough of you and we had heard from your neighborhood leadership And we wanted to make sure everybody had an opportunity to show up and and you know share your ideas share your concerns And so we printed up a thousand flyers and we went with all of our staff and we went door to door leaving those flyers And the neighborhood leadership went and they did they printed out flyers and put them up as well But it's really important, you know, I want to thank the police chief and Maria Villagomas and Eric Walsh Um, hey, I think it was really important for them to hear directly from you as well. And so this is a this is a great Uh beginning of us being able to let them know how important these issues are to you That's going to make my job easier when I go back to them and say, hey, you heard directly from the community They want to fast track this stuff, right? And um, so we appreciate this conversation. We appreciate how respectful everybody was I know that there are um, a lot of serious concerns that you have that a lot of you are very passionate about But I think we kept it very productive So I also want to thank the state representative, Diego, but now for coming and joining and for the work He's been doing behind the scenes. I'm gonna go ahead and hand this back to Parker. Um, we'll be Doing this meeting all over again march 17th Right here in this room six o'clock St. Paddy's Day See if we can get me I have asked the bar owners to attend that meeting Um, I wanted us to be able to gather these conversations before meeting with them You know get your frustrations out is thanking mark for coming. I specifically asked mark to come mark his You know, he almost he probably runs one of the biggest operation on the strip and He always is open for conversation and has done several things Um, requested by our street to try and help um with some of the problems and We just need more of those conversations with the owners and I think that we can improve everything Listen, I think it's we've heard you tonight And it's important to us It's important to me that you leave your understanding that we heard you and we understand your frustration And we will continue to do what we're doing right now As an effective as it may appear we'll continue to add police out there Writing tickets making arrests that will continue to work on the long term solution to the problem. Just want you to know that Thanks