 during this, and we wanted to host this event as a restoration group to sort of clear up any of the confusion that surrounds this issue right now. There's a lot of misinformation out there about the lawsuit, especially at the Texas Supreme Court level and some folks are, you know, and saying that this isn't gonna really impact the land or what goes on in that land, that's not the reality. This lawsuit does play a huge part on what is going to be built in that space. So we have Amy, who is our amazing, amazing attorney and has been doing this work for free for the last couple of years. Yeah, she has been putting in a lot of time, a lot of effort into this and she's still doing it because it's not ending. So Amy's gonna be clearing up some of the questions that we might have. Just give us a quick update on what's going on. Yeah. So my day job is teaching law. I'm a law school. So please forgive me. If I get too law school-like, throw something at me. But we did wanna go over the history of the bridge and the history of the struggle to save the bridge as this important engineering, cultural landmark for the East Side and for all of San Antonio. So we wanted to look at the history and that's what some of the slides we have. Then we wanted to go over the lawsuit and where we are. And I think the big picture, like why so many of us are in this struggle and think it's so important, is that it really is a way to look at the ways in which our city government serves the wealthy and not the people. And it's also, from a legal perspective, it shows and it reveals how many barriers there are to democracy or to the voice of the people as opposed to the voice of the wealthy. That's where we are today. And I think it's important to know that and we're gonna win this struggle. And along the way, we're gonna learn a whole lot and educate our neighbors a whole lot. So hopefully we can get some better leadership. Everything about this case is about anti-democratic assertion as a power. So the deal is, the bathrooms are over there, there's all this coffee and food. If you have any questions as we go along, like it doesn't make sense what I'm saying, please, please, please stop or raise your hand or ask a question. That would be really helpful to me because as those of you who know me, I get sick of my own voice really fast. So it's helpful to be able to engage in that movement. Please forgive me if you ask a question that's kind of about something that's gonna come later, I'll say to you, can we leave that to later? So please don't feel offended if I do that. But please do feel free to interrupt at any point and that would be great. I would be grateful for that. Okay, anything else at the very, as we start? Okay, the, I need to keep my water. This is the history that Doug Stanton brought to us and many other railroad historians. Most of the bridge was built in 1881 out of raw iron. And one of the unique things about it, it was brought to St. Antonio to put in this place in 1910 because the railroad asked the city's permission to lay down those tracks that we now know are on the east side. And they were, by doing that, they were cutting off all of the roads that go from the east to downtown. And around 1910, I think the first automobile that was sold in St. Antonio was in 1905. The first one that appeared there was in 1904. So what you have in 1910 is people beginning to use a variety of different means of transportation. There are many horse-drawn trolleys and buses that would go across those streets. So to allow them to block all those streets, the city required that they place some viaduct, that means just going from one place to another across the tracks. So they took these two bridges from different places on the line that were built in the 1880s. This one on our left-hand side is a Pratt Trust. Very famous. The one called the Whipple Trust is one of the only Whipple trusts with a phoenix column left in the country. These were the first two designs for long-span bridges. And the Whipple Trust was invented, I think it was packed in 1841 and the Pratt Trust in 1844. But these were some of the first span bridges that were built in the country or anywhere else. What Doug Steadman taught us is that it's the wrought iron construction. Bridges used to be all of wood right before these came around. No engineers had figured out the way the forces of weight interact. So the Whipple was the first person to use a scientific approach to measuring the way the weight affects the material. And the longer they got, the bridges would collapse. So there were a lot of very famous collapsing bridges in the mid-1800s. So these bridges were among the first. They are the same technique as the Eiffel Tower built six years early. So that's kind of the standing and importance of this bridge in terms of history and indeed in terms of the country. The Whipple Trust, this idea of the phoenix collos, if you look to the right and the Whipple Trust is the upright, those were wrought iron but they were hollow. So they weren't as heavy as all the others. And they are very famous and that's one of the things that makes this bridge one of the only remaining Whipple Trust bridges with a phoenix collos. Okay, very important. And the conversation about the view of the bridge is this photo is taken from the quarter of Sherry and Lamar. And this is the only remaining place on the sidewalk where you can see both trusts. Once the apartment building, if it's built, it won't be able to be seen by anybody except people who live in the apartment building. And that's one of their marketing techniques. Well, and this one also gives you this guy line of San Antonio from the ground level as I think the other people. That it gives you the skyline of San Antonio in the background for our other views. Other views don't give you that. But you can't really see, when you walk around you can't really see all the trust. Okay, so it was the year, neither the city nor the railroad took care of it. The railroad said, okay, we'll put it up. The city said, we gotta put it up. So by the 1980s, 1970s, it was really run down. It was getting dangerous and it was eventually closed in 1982. This struggle was going on. There's a letter to the editor from Doug Steadman in 1967 about the bridge. So one of the lessons is that these struggles don't happen within any of our lifetime. The justice comes beyond the human lifetime. Then in the 90s, this is his letter. As a native San Antonio, I think the cleanup and pay up for the house here is a good slogan. However, I can't see how our city officials and our Chamber of Commerce can be satisfied with the slogan when our history bridge is becoming a death trap and it's always so full of rubbish and broken bottles that has its railings deteriorating. I think the bridge should be painted and lighted up at night and kept clean, especially now that hemisphere will soon be opening. 51 years ago. Yeah. So then it was closed in the early 90s, Nettie Hinton coming back to San Antonio after working for the federal government, learns that the city has plans to demolish the bridge and goes door to door on the east side with a petition seeking to save the bridge. As Marcy said, by the end of the 90s, Gary Houston, Marcy Hans and many others, Jude Broucher and you know the Daisy Tours, a group of activists from the east side, but also from all over the city, right? Doug Steadman was a very high ranking engineer, the head of W.D. Sapsons, all right? Built the hemisphere and all that stuff. So he was what we sometimes call one of the 17 white men that run the city, but then he started hanging out with east-siders and with people and they started treating like deer. Yeah, he's a powerful man. All right, he just passed away two months ago. His son has become active in the group and tells us that as Doug was dying, he continued to tell the story of the history bridge and said that those crooks stole our land. So the group got together, they did a study in March of 2001. And this is the report that came out of the study. And what's highlighted is the fact that Budco was vacating the east side location, all right? After tremendous opportunity, another tremendous opportunity has emerged from Budco's announcement that they will be moving from their current location that spans on both sides of the history bridge for a significantly larger campus. Establishing a line of communication between the city and the deer distributing giant could result in a funding source or a deed property as a public relations strategy, okay? So this is, in other words, the land was early, early on. This is before we had funding from the federal government part of the project. The history bridge restoration group identified sources of funding, helped to get engineers and other professionals to donate their services, essentially dragged the city into signing a funding application to the federal government. I might accurate, there wasn't, there wasn't very much enthusiasm from the city. They wanted to demolish it. So the restoration group had to do all the work. And they got, in 2001, a $2.8 million grant from the federal government under a program that's now ironically called Fund for Transportation Equity. So the city then was presented with a question of whether they should accept this grant. And they said, well, if we accept the grant, we're gonna have to pay out some city money and we don't wanna do that. Because it's the way the grants work, you have to put up 20% and they give you 80%. So the city said, well, we might not accept it because we don't wanna give any money towards this project, right? Eastside. So they required the restoration group to take on the burden of raising funds for the project. And in the paperwork that they gave to the History Bridge group, the word funds, there was another paragraph that says funds can include in-kind land, it can include the in-kind services, it can include any property that the city doesn't own at this moment. So, and in fact, at that time, 2001, 2002, the plan was, first of all, they had to get Union Pacific to donate the bridge because Union Pacific, oh, the bridge. And they had to get Union Pacific to donate the land underneath the bridge. And they planned to get the Dawson Brothers, owners of Budco, to donate the plot of land that is adjacent to the bridge, to serve as essentially a visiting center. Originally, the plan was to have one of the old railroad stations relocated there so there could be a kind of interactive exhibit about the railroad industry and the importance of the railroad industry, both to that part of the city and to all of San Antonio. Mysteriously, that was burned down. And, but it was throughout the planning, it was understood that this was gonna be part of the project. The language of this agreement with the restoration group. Step back. This was written by the city attorney and the city planning office. And it was presented to the history restoration group as we're not gonna take the 2.8 million unless you sign this. There was some controversy within the group. Some of them thought it was a good idea. Some of them didn't. Eventually they said, well, we're already doing this work. We've already been having fundraising and solicitation events. We can do this and we are willing to take on that responsibility. So, the piece of paper that they sign says that the group will be responsible for raising these funds, which include cash and in-kind donations. And in return, a contract goes both ways, in return the city will promise that anything the restoration group generates will go to the History Bridge project. We don't know exactly what that's gonna be because that's the future. You're gonna go up and solicit resources but we promise that anything that you generate will go towards this bridge project. All right, so that's this famous piece of paper. This is the land. So now we're looking east from above. The History Bridge is on our right. Lamar is on our left. Sherry is down the middle, okay? And it's 1.6913. So, in 2004, pursuant to this agreement with the city, the restoration group solicits Dawson and this is a letter to Malcolm Matthews who is the Department of Parks and Recreation. And at that point, the arrangement was, and Marcy, you correct me on this but, and I found a couple of letters from you that I was looking at this morning, but basically the agreement was because the restoration group is like an unincorporated association. So they were working with the San Antonio Area Foundation. Any money gifts would go to the foundation for the History Bridge project. And so when the Dawson land was talked about and they went and talked to the Dawson's and it was Marcy, right? And Nettie and... That's it. That's it. Yeah. You went and sat with them and told them all about the project and they got excited and then you started to try to put it together and realized that the San Antonio Area Foundation wouldn't accept the donation, right? Because it's land and not money. They just do it. So what to do, and eventually the bottom line is that the city agreed verbally, handshake, we're working as partners. We will take the land and hold it for the restoration group until such time as the bridge is complete and the restoration group can raise the funds to do the improvements to build a visitor center and parking facilities for school buses and restroom facilities on the land. That was the deal. Everybody, these are all a bunch of documents, Marcy's on some, throughout the documentation of the project, consistently the bridge and the land are linked together. So for example, there's an email from the city, one of the supervisors to one of his underlings who was working with the restoration group and they said, where are we on the land for the H-street Bridge Project? And he responds, well, this was in 2007. Well, we already have the Cherry Street land but we're still negotiating with Union Pacific to get the bridge and the land under the bridge. So clearly everybody understood that this was all included. Union Pacific was terrible to negotiate with and the group had to do some of that as well. They didn't want to take care of the bridge, they didn't want anybody throwing anything on the tracks, they wanted so much, right? So it literally took until the end of 2007, 2001, so six years of negotiating with Union Pacific. During that time, they'd also been negotiating, they also had already worked with Dawson's and the Dawson's were ready to give the land and ready to make contributions. But the city was wholly off and finally the Dawson said, look, in 2007, look, you either take it or we're gonna put it on the market and sell it. So we have testimony from Sheila McNeill who was involved in that moment and Abigail... Hennison. Hennison, right, who was the head of the city's bike and height traffic. So they said, well, what are we gonna do? We don't have the bridge for the Union Pacific, we still really don't know whether they're gonna give it to us. So they draft, indeed, where the Dawson's can transfer the land to the city for the Haney Street Bridge project but it says, if the land is used as a park, we will call it the Dawson Park. Sheila McNeill was there in the role at City Hall when the word if was inserted into that deal. And the reason for it, she testified, is that they didn't know if they would get the bridge. So clearly, if the bridge was never donated, the project would never go forward. But there was no thought that if the project went forward, then the land wouldn't be part of the project, clearly. So the if was only included for the bridge, like if the bridge was included, not if it was sold or if land was sold? Exactly, exactly. Needless to say, the city's made a whole lot of that gift. Okay. So the donation is completed in October of 2007 and it says it authorizes the acceptance of a one-time donation for one parcel of land in connection with the Haney Street Bridge restoration project located in Council District Two. And then it says the idea for the project originated within the Cougar community activists, all right? So that is the document that the city approved in accepting this land. And again, the ordinance reflects that. Amy, yes, me, I have a question. Yes, to Claire. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So with Sheila McNeil, did she put that in writing? Yes, she, well, the if and... First of all, she was a signer to the original memorandum of grief. Right. So she understood that part. She, if the deal with the city, both the city's agreement to hold it in trust and the insertion of the if was not in writing. Okay. Later, Sheila McNeil submitted an affidavit in the context of this lawsuit, stating exactly what I said. Right, and are we in possession of that? And does somehow or another that help? Obviously, in my mind, help the case of Supreme Court. Oh, well, that we're gonna get to in a minute. It doesn't help at the Supreme Court level. But it does help in that case. Am I that right? All right, so 2010, they finally have gotten the bridge from Union Pacific and they have finally done the restoration and it is reopened on a wonderful day in July. And this has just been out of bitty, that he isn't speech that day. We're here today to welcome the old lady, the history bridge back into the prominence. She's always had in our hearts, even though some thought of her to be an eyesore. Isn't she beautiful? And isn't the view of downtown wonderful? But folks, it's not over. Fat lady has not yet sung. We still have miles to go before we sleep. The risk-raising group will hit the fundraising trail. Again, we have a part to develop. So buy a history bridge pin. And be receptive to us when we start our funding process again to help the area foundation. The history bridge rocks and who knows, maybe next year it will rock and roll. I wish. Okay, so Mr. Seymour, Eugene Seymour was at the opening. And it looked good. Those of you who remember when Hartberger was mayor, there would be little postcards from Hartberger when he went sailing around the world. And often in those little journal messages from Hartberger, he would talk about his friend Eugene, who was with him, Eugene Seymour. I know Amy Hartberger and her sister and they don't have any brothers. And the other standing of everybody who knows the Hartbergers is that Seymour is the son that Phil Hartberger never had. And he's a man from California. What? Santa Ana? Santa Ana, that's right. He was born in Santa Ana, which makes him convinced that his destiny was to have alibi. Anyway, so he went to the opening. He bought property on two sides of the bridge, which is where he down as a parking lot at the brewery, the middle of the bridge. And then with the help of Trey Jacobson, who was an aide to Mayor Hartberger and was hired as the principal lobbyist for Seymour, they made a bunch of back room deals. Nobody knew about it in the spring of 2011, but they were lining up everybody in the city staff to support this. In fact, one person that we ran into had called in the spring of 2011 and asked about this piece of land that's located next to the bridge and they said, well, it's already been promised to some of these. So among the things they did was enlist future mayor Ivy Taylor, who was then council person from district two. And she set them up with the Dignity Hill Neighborhood Association. Mr. Juan Garcia was then president of the association and they met secretly also. And so Seymour solicited and got the support of the people who were important in the Dignity Hill Neighborhood Association at that time. Still all without telling the history restoration group. The history restoration group was out raising funds for this development and they were promising it to Seymour. The deal was a nice deal that wasn't offered to any other business people, right? And that was, you pay us $295,000, all right? One of the things that Marcy wrote at the time was, hey, you're selling it to him for $295,000. That's what it was estimated to be worth in 2004 before there was a restored historic bridge next to it. All of that stuff. Anyway, it didn't matter because they promised to sell it to him for $295,000 and then they promised to give back to him whatever it was that he paid. So they could charge him $500,000 and he would still get $500,000 back. In other words, for most of us that looks like a gift, right? Give me, buddy, I'll give you the money back. In addition to getting the money back, he was going to get about 900 here, I have it up here. He would get $795,000 from reimbursed or waived property taxes. So this is the deal, a sweetheart deal if there ever was one. In addition to this, he was given for free, no charge, the right to build a skywalk to the bridge, have a private restaurant set up all along the bridge and use the land underneath the bridge for whatever he wanted. That's what they gave him in 2012 and that's why he's still on the books that he has a right to today. So this is the terms of that order. Later in the, this was, that was in August, we gave him August 2012. Later on, inquiry was made to the Federal Highway Administration who had provided the $2.8 billion and said, well, is it gonna be, is it okay with you all if the city goes through with this project in which the bridge will be used for a private restaurant connected to a brewery that's gonna be a craftier brewery on the corner of Sherry and Lamar. And they wrote back and they said, no, this is supposed to be for public use and if you allow Seymour to have his restaurant on the bridge, you'll have to return the $2.8 million, okay? The city didn't blink. Did they go and talk to Seymour and say, you know, maybe we can't do this? No, you know, they just figured they'd pay back the money because he's a good friend of Harburg. What? The son that Harburg remember that, you know? This is what sweetheart deals look like. I never get those. Yeah. What? I never get those. I never, nobody else has offered this. Nobody else even knew about it. Until it came out of it. Okay. Can I have some water? People can eat water. So we kept asking about this letter and they kept saying, oh, you know, they apparently had a meeting with the federal government. The federal government didn't back down. So then by then, let's see, this first started when Obama was in his first administration, so they were waiting for him to get defeated in his second trip, right? So they just sat around and waited. And then he got reelected and then they started getting panicky because they didn't back down. So, so they stalled and stalled and stalled. So here we are. They still haven't gotten an official change of policy from the Department of Transportation, but guess what? I expect that there will be likely, but so we still have to watch for a restaurant. Now supposedly this skywalk is gonna be not to the brewery because he's already built a brewery on Burnett and Lamar, going across. But to the apartment buildings. So the apartments are gonna have an exclusive view of the bridge and then they can have a skywalk over to a private restaurant. At one point Seymour had a community meeting. I think this was in about 2013. And the neighbors said like, is this gonna be one of those restaurants that's got white tablecloths and wine glasses and stuff really expensive. And he said, yeah, it's gonna be a first grade four-star restaurant on the bridge. And they said, well, what about people who can't afford to go to those kind of restaurants? Seymour goes, not a problem, not a problem. I'm not gonna leave out anybody. Everybody's gonna be included. We're gonna have like right under the bridge, we're gonna have a hot dog stand and you can bring your families to the stand and it'll be really nice, okay? Segregation. What? Segregation. Yeah. But then there's still, well, there isn't truck, right? They're subtops. So we filed suit in December of 2012. We didn't know it was his birthday. It was okay, we filed on his birthday. And we went to trial in July of 2014. Now, there's been a lot of misinformation about what the trial was about. Here's the truth. We filed the lawsuit with two claims. One was under a state statute that says if the city has a public land that they're using for public land and they decide to sell it, then if there is a petition by more than 3,000 residents, then they have to submit the question to a vote of the whole city. This is a really important piece of legislation that has been slashed to almost meaningless stats. The same issue was there for the Hemisphere Park, right? The idea comes from the idea that the city as a government does not own the streets or the sidewalks or the parks or the land that's in their name. They don't own it, they hold it for the public, right? That is the understanding of the role of local government up until the Reagan Revolution in the 1980s. The idea was, and this statute was part of that. That is, if this is property that you're holding in trust for the people, then you can't sell it without the permission of the people. So the original statutes like that said you just can't do it unless you have a vote by everybody. The Texas legislature cut back on that, and they said, well, you don't have to have a vote, you have to have a petition first, then you have to have a vote. Now, if you look at the statute, it is so filled with exceptions. If you are a city that has more than 3,000 people but less than 100,000 people and you're located within 150 miles of the coast, then you don't have to have an election in order to sell. I mean, every city has gotten an exemption from this statute just as the city of San Antonio did in order to sell off parts of the Hemisphere Park. So we had that claim. Did we feel good about that claim? Not really. Once the city council failed so much to step up, we can't afford to put on a city-wide election, right? We can't buy ads. That's not what we wanted. In addition, it was a class action and our name to plaintive, Beatriz Valévez, was ill on the day that we had the trial set after waiting for eight months. So our second claim was a breach of contract claim. And that was that the city made a deal and entered a contract with the restoration group. You must raise the funds. You must raise the resources. You must get donations. And in exchange, we promised that everything you raise will go to this project. That's really straightforward, right? I mean, it makes, okay. So that's what we went to trial emphasizing because we knew that that was our strongest case and the opportunity that we would have to have specific performance. That is, have the city ordered to obey that contract, to live up to that contract. The city has made a huge amount by the fact that the jury found that this land was not held as a part. So they found that as we didn't push that claim at all. That's why in reality, when the jury ruled in our favor, dinding that the city had reached a contract, the city attorney was in the bathroom weeping. At the next day, the city came out and said, we won. Okay, so, breach of contract. There was a week long trial, we put on evidence similar to what you've seen, that there was an agreement, the land was donated, generated by the history bridge restoration group, should have been put into the history bridge project. They did not argue at trial what they're arguing today, which is, well, it says that it has to be allocated to the budget that's been approved by the Texas Department of Transportation. That was never brought up at the trial. And in fact, the only evidence of the trial was that there never was a budget approved by the Texas Department of Education. I mean transportation, okay? What there was was a history bridge project. That's what everybody understood. I'm a contracts law professor. That's my specialty, you know? Contracts are the agreement. They're not what's in writing. It's what people understand by the writing. And there was overwhelming evidence that the people who wrote the document understood it to mean that cash and in-kind donations would go to the history bridge project, all right? Overwhelming, and that's what the jury found. The jury found that that word meant cash and in-kind, and the jury found that the promise was to transfer the, or use the land for the history bridge project. Okay, so, and any argument that they could have made that somehow they sold the land and used it for the project was undermined by their own language that we just looked at, right? In other words, what did they do with the money when they sold it to Al Mabeer? They gave it back to him, right? They gave the money back to Seawater. So, this is the verdict that, or the judgment that was entered in September of 2014, that the distracted city shall allocate a flag and use all funds raised by the police in the history bridge restoration group as included in the property by the five said fronts directly to the group, the city of San Antonio budget and for the history bridge. Okay, we were disappointed. This was not the language that Canales said that he was going to put in the judgment. We feel like he took it out, but it's fine. You know, we know what that means to the parties. So, we then reached out to the city to negotiate some kind of a implementation of the judgment. That's what you do, right? When you have a judgment. This is basically a judgment for ordering the city to do this. This was the time that Mayor Taylor became the temporary judge, I mean, temporary mayor. Yeah. Okay? The city attorney, Robbie Greenbloom, under Mayor Castro, Castro was invited to go and join the Obama administration and Robbie was invited to go with him. So, this is all happening between the fall of 2014. So, we're negotiating with Robbie and talking about how we're going to implement this judgment and he's meeting with us. And then he contacts us and he says, you know, I'm going to Washington. My last day is November 24th. Can we meet together and we'll talk to the, who's going to be the acting city attorney, Martha Zepeda. So, we sat down with her and him and we met and we talked about implementing this judgment. We talked about how we were going to do the fundraising and where we were going to place the visitor center and how it would be implemented. So, we asked them, let's see how you can figure it out. They said, Robbie at that time at that meeting indicated that the city was willing to preserve the view shed of the District Bridge. We asked what department was involved in the economic development issues regarding the Alamo Beer Company because after the judgment, the Alamo Beer Company started to go wild. But, they already had their brewery built. Okay, they built their brewery on the Burnett land in 2013. So, we asked what city department was involved and the city didn't answer. We asked if the city center development office and they said no. We wanted to know who to talk to about how this land was going to be treated. They had never allocated it to anybody and we were desperately trying to find out who we should talk to. We were asked if there was any current proposal regarding the land at Edo Frito, in Syria, and the city said no. This is November 24th of 2014. They sent us a letter that was dated November 26th and it wasn't mailed until December 1st. It was received by me on December 4th in the afternoon and by that time, the city council had already voted to transfer the land to Alamo, not to Alamo Beer, no I'm sorry. They voted to transfer the land to the Alamo Beer Company. All right, so. Well, and I want to be very clear, right? They could have told us this meeting was going to happen since we were meeting face to face with them. They sent that little notice. It came after the vote. The way we found out about this vote was somebody from the newspaper, from the Express News. Was that you, maybe? Called and said, what do you think that the city sold this land? And we're like, what? We have no idea. Go ahead. There's another little part in that. Yeah, I'll tell you that. I will. He, Eugene Seymour owned the property here on the Brevard building. And it was, we supported that trying to get it going but it never did. As most of Eugene Seymour's projects have financially been a failure. And so he couldn't do anything with it. He was going into bankruptcy. So that was actually the catalyst of why Harbor Group came and made this deal because I think the city took over the Brevard building. Yeah. And they also exchanged some city where the Santa Ana School District was run. And the area here was a freeway, I mean it was a more than a sweetheart deal just giving them money. It was also taking this financial burden away. Away from them. Like his godson. And yeah, so it was a lot of money. And they had merchant ice too, right? He had, I mean notice, he had the, he had Brevard building and merchant ice, both of which were heavily subsidized by the city. Both of which failed, he failed. Almost everything he had touched. Yeah, everything he touched. Well, he did own the land on the other side. He bought it after the bridge was reopened. Yeah, everything was 20. But he did buy it. He did buy it again. But then it was the other side that they figured, oh, we could just give this to Eugene. You know? You know, it was a little more than just giving them money. No, thank you. Dead off of him. That makes sense, yeah. So this land, that was, we're talking about the actual lot now that the apartment is again. Well, it's the actual lot that they were doing. Sure. And Lori Houston, who was at that time the director of the center city development office. The office that we asked directly if they were involved and the city directly said no, she testified to council that the Alba Beer Company, even though they already had their brewery, they needed this land at Inafreeno Cherry for brewery facilities and for parking and connection with the brewery. So that's why we should still give them the land, okay? And give them the money that they pay for the land. Yeah, again, we're still at 295,000. It's worth much more now. And they, we talked to city council people who had met in the executive session before this. And they were told that the city had won the lawsuit and was obligated to transfer this land to city. That's right. So the city lights. What? So the city lights. The city council. Well, I think so. Yeah, I think so. I think the city staff, there's no doubt that the city staff manipulated city council. Absolutely, absolutely. Even in public because we have videotape of Lord Houston saying we need to give this land to Alamo Beer because they need it for the brewery and for parking facilities connected to the brewery. And then there was a question. Well, are we giving them, this was a, what's the name? Are we, we're not really giving them cash, right? We're not giving them cash. Well, there is a $50,000 cash grant that we're giving. But that's all. That's all. So, within hours of the vote, the city manager's office signs a deed transferring the land not to the Alamo Beer company as the city council had authorized, but to the Seymour Texas Land Company which is a wholly different entity. Well, they're all Harberger's son. I mean, it was an unauthorized transfer of that property that was, they lied to us about. They manipulated city council and there it is. At the same time, city council reauthorized the skywalk, the restaurant on top of the bridge, the city staff did not tell the city council that they would have to pay back the $2.8 million, but they knew that it would have to, right? Okay. Mm, mm, mm. But we were very optimistic that Ivy Taylor would not be elected. She promised she wouldn't run, but this was her baby. She ran, you know? I believe that what happened between our meeting on the November 24th and December 4th was that Mary Taylor said get this done, you know, I don't want to hear any shit, just do it. Because this is the kind of, you know, super obvious lying and manipulation by city staff. Okay. So then, we filed, we filed, that's the next step. We filed a motion for contempt, okay? In December, right after they did this deal. What a motion for contempt is, is the city violated the judge's order, the judgment, okay? And the way we can enforce the judgment is by going back to the court and saying, they disobeyed your order. We want this transfer invalidated, all right? That's what we said in December of 2014. We want this transfer invalidated. This is contempt of court. And the same day, the city filed a notice of appeal. So now we're getting lost. Does anybody have any questions or want to shake or anything? No? Are you okay? I have a lot of questions. Yeah. So he got the three, the 295 that he paid was for where the brewery and the parking lot are now, or would, is that just? No. So I'm sorry I don't have a back. But here's the thing. Now I can do this. All right, so here's the bridge like this, right? I can't draw either, so. Here's Jerry. This is Lamar, right? And Bernadette is over here. So after the bridge was opened, he purchased this piece of property here and this piece of property here. Today, this is the aloe beer parking lot and this is the aloe beer brewery, okay? So this is how it was in 2014. He already had this built after threatening to block the view of downtown and everything else. He went ahead and built that. This was the piece of property that we're talking about. 803 North Cherry. And this is the piece of property where he originally wanted to put his brewery. So the sidewalk would go over here and then they have restaurant tables here, all right? So the city council said, we're told that even though they had this brewery, he still needs this land for the brewery. For facilities, storage and parking and stuff like that. So this is what they transferred to him. He paid, I don't know, let's see, who paid? I believe, I don't know. We don't know whether anybody was ever paid to the city. But this was transferred to the Seawall, Texas land trust. Or land companies, all right? And later in 2015, $295,000 check was written from the city to the Alamo Beer Company. And technically, the Alamo Beer Company and or Mr. Seawall has the right to build a skywalk to the bridge for whatever is here and put tables on the bridge and have a restaurant. And he has a cash grant of $50,000 waiting for him as soon as he decides to set up that restaurant. So that's where we are right now. Those licenses are in place. All right, so, here's where the law comes in. The first thing that happens is there's an automatic stay. Okay, it's a suspension of the judge. You have an entity and you have a judgment against you and you appeal the judgment. It's automatically suspended. Nobody can enforce the judgment against the city. Okay? If you're not the government, you can't do that. You have to put up a buddy, you have your subject to restrictions by the court and all that. The idea in the law is that once there's an appeal, everything should stay the way it is when the judgment is entered, which is only fair. The person who won the judgment ought to just wait and see if the court of appeals upholds it and the other side ought not to do anything to undermine the judgment. So that's how it was after the city filed an appeal in 2014. By the way, when we were talking to the city council members today, they said, well, we had to do this because the city won the lawsuit. We said, well, if the city won the lawsuit, why didn't they appeal the decision? Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Nirenberg said that, Shirley Gonzalez said that, Oh, gosh, that's a good point, and that's not it. So then we go to the court of appeals and eventually on March 1st, 2017, on the sparch 2017, the court of appeals issues its decision. The court of appeals says nothing about whether or not, whether or not the city breached the contract. I do say that at this point, the city's only argument was, well, this really wasn't a contract, it was a memorandum of understanding. And the court of appeals on oral argument said, what are the judges who said, but is it a memorandum of understanding and agreement? What the hell? Is it an agreement of contract? Well, no, Your Honor, not in this case, you know. So the city really was, they almost laughed at the city for their one argument. But the court of appeals ruled that the city was immune from any legal liability for its breach of contract. So this is the idea of immunity. Okay? This idea comes from the idea of sovereignty, which is, essentially, the king can do no wrong. The king can do no wrong. In the United States, that means the government can do no wrong. This idea is very inconsistent with the democracy. Right? It is just a novel. So, but it exists. And again, the city did not argue this. The city, well, I can't say that. They didn't argue, they didn't. They put it in their brief, but they didn't argue it on oral argument. But it wasn't there. With ideas in the law that are so, on their face, kind of in conflict, what you do is you have judges trying to get around it or trying to promote it. There's this whole kind of complexity in the law that comes out of stupid ideas. It's like the statute of frauds. There's just like the 5 million books we have. So immunity is really complex. Here's the short story. The city is not a king. The city does not have sovereignty. The state has sovereignty. So the idea is that the city is not immune unless the state has, or unless they act on behalf of the state. If they act on behalf of the state, they are immune. And essentially the law says the city acts on behalf of the state when it engages in governmental activities. Not when it engages in what they call proprietary, which basically means when it acts like a business. When it acts like its own business. I'll just put business. Unless the state waves the immunity. So if the city is acting like a government, they still are liable if the state waves the immunity. If the city is acting like a business, they have no immunity. At the time we brought the suit, the Court of Appeals had ruled that the city, when it enters into a contract, is always acting as the government. So they always have immunity according to the Fourth Court of Appeals when they enter into a contract. And the only time that they don't have immunity is if the state waves the immunity. Now, I know this is really complicated, but bottom line, this is like a license for fraud. In other words, if you're a city, you can enter into a contract. The other party has to perform, they have to do whatever work they're hired to do, and the city doesn't have to pay them. Or if you're buying something from the city and you pay the city, they don't have to give you whatever it is that you're bought. It's like it creates this big giant monster above us that gets to do whatever they want. Trump, by the way, really loves this stuff. So, but it's not really fascist like soccer. Nowadays, the justification for governmental immunity is that the government ought not to have to pay when their employees or their representatives do harm to the community. But that's not fair to the government, because the government is really all of the people, and they say it's not a tort to be a government. It's a really problematic idea, it doesn't hold up. What it means basically is the government can do harm, and whoever they do harm to has to bear all of the injury on their own. All right, so we did, at that time, and we still do today, have a ordinance that says when the city enters into certain kind of contracts, even though they're acting in a governmental way, they ought to have reached a contract action. It says a local governmental entity is authorized by statute to enter into a contract, that enters into a contract subject to the subjector, waives sovereign immunity in a suit for the purpose of adjudicating a claim for breach of contract subject to the terms and conditions of this subject. All right, so that's where we were for appeals. We said this is a contract that's covered by this statute. And basically the court of appeals agreed with that. However, the court of appeals said this next provision says the total amount of money awarded in adjudication brought against the local government entity for breach of contract is limited to the following. And the following are the amount of money due under the contract and no consequential damages and no attorney's fees. We were seeking no money damages. Contract law, please tell me if you're just hating what I'm doing. Anyway, under contract law, you make a contract, you breach the contract. There are two forms of revenue. Either you have to pay damages to the other side or you are subject to an order of specific performance which means you have to do what you promised. Those are the two different revenues. One is money, one is you got to do what you promised. That's contract law, Texas contract law, everybody's contract law. We said, judge, I know you're strange, but we did this because we want to help our community. Right? And first of all, the city said it's no contract because you're not getting paid. And so we had to go through that. We argued and the district court said, actually, you can't have a contract even if you're not getting paid. But here, the promo field said the total amount of money awarded in adjudication brought against the local government entity means that you have to bring a claim for money damages or else the government is immune. I think that they misread the words of the section and it's everybody that I've talked to that looks at it, thinks so too, you know. But based on that interpretation and based on the interpretation that the city is always acting as a part of the state when they enter into a contract, the court appeals entered judgment saying the city's immune, the case is dismissed. They may have made a contract, they may have reached it, but if you don't want money too bad, we don't like people who work for nothing, right? I mean that's basically what it says. So this judgment, I mean this decision was issued but the judgment was never finalized because we appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. In the meantime, the Texas Supreme Court, in a case called Watson, ruled that the Fourth Court of Appeals was very wrong in saying that the city is always acting for the state whenever it enters a contract. They said that's not right. The city is acting on its own behalf when it enters contracts for all sorts of things, when it buys staples for the office, when it buys pensions, when it hires fundraisers, right? When it hires PR people, when it hires lawyers to handle the cases for breach of contract. They're not acting as representatives of the state of Texas. So the Supreme Court entered a judgment after the Court of Appeals ruled against us that basically says when the city enters into contracts where it's just for their own benefit, it's not because the state orders them to do it, then they don't have a meeting, right? So our appeal to the Texas Supreme Court, yeah. I got a question. Yeah. So in essence, the state is saying no, because that would make us liable for your bad behavior, right? More or less. Well, yes, but the state has immunity. Awesome. I think that one. The state has immunity against any of this. Okay. So the way they talk about it is the city is brought within the cloak of the state. Yeah. Then they become like a king. And the law for 200 years has said that's not true. When cities act on their own, all the city is an corporation. So it's really been interesting because in Texas, the legislature has given governments all kinds of powers. The courts of appeals have been even more generous. And the Supreme Court for about 35 years has been trying desperately to get the legislature to stop expanding immunity. And I think that's why the Texas Supreme Court decided, in our case, because this is another example of distorting a piece of legislation in order to give immunity. And the Texas Supreme Court, you know, they're all Republicans. But from my meeting, I have some faith that they have some integrity because they really have it. Yeah. I mean, she just is half. Really, he's issued opinions on this, and he says, this immunity is outrageous. The legislature, we call on you to act, you know, to make some sense of this and just stop passing the buck. Right? When we go to the Texas Supreme Court, we're going to say first that this was the city acting as a business hiring fundraisers and they're subject to a breach of petric action. All right? Next, we're going to say even if they were acting as a government, part of the state, that statute waives their immunity. So we are very confident, although anything can happen, that the Texas Supreme Court, when it hears this case in September or October, will decide at some point thereafter that the city doesn't have immunity. At that point, we go back to the district court and finally we get to enforce our judgment and have a hearing on whether they breach the contract when they lied to us and manipulated the city council and gave the land away to Segal. That's the first time we're going to have a hearing on the merits. After the Court of Appeals ruled in their favor, the city began to try to change the status quo. They tried to change the conditions so that the judgment would essentially be unenforceable eventually. After the Texas Supreme Court ruled that they would take our case on June 1, the city and the developers and their supporters went crazy trying to get this building built on the land before the Texas Supreme Court gets a chance to rule. That's where we are today, all right? Above the things they've said is that the Texas Supreme Court decision will have nothing to do with the land. Well, yeah, I mean, except that I will say that you're not a viewed and that you have violated the judgment of the court. That's how this case relates directly to this proposed building, all right? And that was the picture of the building that's proposed to be on the line. So that's why and the city keeps putting out this false information, much like the Trump administration, believing that if they repeat it enough, people will believe it. And also in our city, we're respectful people, right? If the authorities say it, it's got to be right. It's not those people. People on the east side are those activists, right? So that's where we are. Yes? I had no recollection of a contract for that property now from the Dawson's who gave it to us and then the city went to the Dawson's and said, no, no, give it to us. Was there ever a contract between the Dawson's and the city? No. I've never seen one. No, there wasn't. But what there was, the city just stayed out of it. The restoration group negotiated with the Dawson's. Initially, we, after the Dawson's agreed enthusiastically, we went to the, or you all went, to the Alhoff Foundation, Ericka Foundation, and they said we can't take it. At that point is when Steadman and you all approached the city, that news, and said, will you all hold this trust? Because we wanted, the Dawson's wanted to get a tax deduction. We weren't a nonprofit, we were even a corporation. So that's why we went to the city and she'll reveal that council person actually created the contract between the Dawson's, what's the name of the contract? It was a deed from the Dawson's giving the land to the city. And it was accompanied by a letter that said, thank you for taking on this on on behalf of the restoration group. And we're excited about the restoration group, the group's ability to make this into something that will enhance the public appreciation of the history bridge. So that's what happened. There isn't any other documentation. That makes sense. The reason why it's so convoluted is because the law has been manipulated by developers and corporations to erect barriers all the way along. We're on this little tightrope. Well, they did this, can we get some revenue? Well, I don't know if there's this, there's immunity, and then on this side there's a limitation on recovery, and then on this side they get an automatic suspension and it is a system that is built to make it very difficult for a new organization. And this organization is did and is doing exactly what anybody who talks about democracy says but not to do. That's what's so important about this in other cases. There's no road for democracy. You're demonized if you're demonized if you're... Yeah. So, any other... I hope it has a good reason. Yeah? Do you have some questions? Do you have any questions? I do. I have a question to clarify, right? Yes. Because... And I think it needs to be reviewed more than once. A lot of people have said what they've said. Well, this lawsuit and whatever the Texas police developments, what is their response? Actually, it's Mr. Jim McDonough from the very beginning. Oh, yeah. The other piece I left out is of early on in the lawsuit, Seaworth sought to intervene and he was represented by Cruz Shaw. Can we say that again? Cruz Shaw, who is now the councilman from District 2, was Eugene Seaworth's attorney in this case. In this case. And when we go to council people and we say, do something about this. You have been manipulated. This is a fraudulent transaction. This is an irresponsible waste of public assets. They say, well, it's up to Mr. Cruz or Mr. Shaw because he's the council person and we have council privilege. So, if it's in his district, he gets to say what he wants. And we say, well, even if he's working for the developer, they say yes. Yes. Yeah. That's up to his own, between him and God. What else was there to do? Yeah, so, what is that? Oh, why did they say that? Here's the thing. So, the developer's attorney, Jim McDonough, has said, initially what they said, after the Court of Appeals ruled, remember, up until when the Court of Appeals ruled, everything was remained at the condition it was in before the judgment was in. But after the Court of Appeals, they started to speed things up to try to get this building built. At that time, James McDonough said, well, the case is dead. The case has already been dismissed. There is no case. All right? So, guess what? He was wrong. So then, then he said, oh, well, the case wasn't dead. It's going to be heard by the Texas Supreme Court, but it has nothing to do with this land. So, you know what? That is no more true than what he said, but the case is dead. And it's not just him. The city attorney's office put out a press release saying, the Texas Supreme Court case, not dead, but it has nothing to do with this land. You know, there's no, there's no reason why they would come to that conclusion except that they don't understand the case at all. I'm a little insulted because why would we be doing all this stuff? You know, somebody in the city said, oh, well, you're going to get paid. How's that going to work? No, yeah. I mean, we're not asking for anybody. Yeah, go ahead. Yes. Yes, yes. Yes, yeah. Thank you. Did you want to? Andy, I heard something today as a part of doing the work on the West Side, learning about the most our folks think that the city owns everything, but I learned that the city only holds. Yes. And that's a really important word because some of our neighborhoods think that the city owns everything. Yeah. Nobody must have said that. We can't do anything. Yeah. But thank you for sharing. I mean, that's my opener for me today. Thank you. Thank you. So I wanted to, Jen, what happened in, between when the Court of Appeals decision came down in March of 2017, they, the Eugene Seabor and Mitch Byer created a company called the 803 North Cherry LLC. And then they filed an assumed name, which is the Bridge Apartments. And then the Texas, I mean, the Seabor and Texas Land Company, who you remember is actually the owner of that property, Defer was an owner here, transferred the land to the ownership of the 803 North Cherry LLC. Okay. This is another legal issue. Now they say, poor us, you're talking about invalidating the transfer of the land to Seabor, but we're the owners. You can't take it away from us. And our response is, you are Eugene Seabor, and he did not innocently come to this, and he's not surprised that we don't think the transfer was valid. Yeah. Under the law, if you are a, quote, bona fide purchaser, that means you buy land that was somebody else's dispute, you're protected. You know, if you didn't know anything about it, you paid money for it. They can't take that land away from you. But if you knew about the dispute, you didn't pay for it, and you are subject to the pre-existing dispute. So both Seabor and the 803 North Cherry and the Seabor Texas Land Corporation and Mitch Beier, all are not bona fide purchasers. Because they do. Because they absolutely, they decided to go forward knowing full well that we had already filed a claim saying that that transfer was invalid and seeking to invalidate it. So they don't have any claim whatsoever. Wait, we haven't answered your question. Well, I didn't answer your question. I'm sorry. Wait, let me do it again. Okay. So after the Perm Appeals decision, they created these companies. They transferred the land to the 803 North Cherry. And 803 North Cherry submitted an application seeking approval for a apartment building to be built on that land that would entirely block the bridge but would have beautiful views of the bridge available for the residents. And because it's in the downtown district, they have to get approval from the Historic Design and Review Commission. And the Historic Design and Review Commission in three separate hearings said, this is not consistent with the guidelines that we're supposed to apply. This is too big, too high, doesn't have any connection to the neighborhood which is a historic district. It's not true. No. The last time they did that was in March. And on March 23rd, the city manager said, well, I reject. I'm going to overrule the Historic Design and Review Commission. Moreover, I am announcing that we have already promised the development of $1.2 million in seed-ship money which is a housing subsidy and it doesn't have to be low income housing. It's for rich people to be able to live in those apartments. So the city manager said, all I ask, I will give you approval, and once you get my approval, you can get your building permit and start to build. However, the developer has to make some changes to the plan. He has to move it back a little bit from the bridge. He has to allow the public access to the land under the bridge and he has to make a variety of other changes. And the Dignity Hill Neighborhood Association, Architectural Review Committee, has to sit down with the developer and negotiate these changes. That he has to make. Otherwise, I won't issue the opinion. And he also has to go to the HDRC and get therapy. So the next thing that happened was the new president of the Dignity Hill Association who is an ally of Eugene Seaborg, Mitch Beyer, disbanded the entire Architectural Review Committee and said, there is no Architectural Review Committee. I will appoint Juan Garcia to be the new chair of the Architectural Review Committee. And you all remember Juan Garcia, he's the one who did the background deal with Ivy Taylor in 2012. So, oh good. Sounds like it's going to win in our favor. Yeah. He also said that he won't appoint anybody to the committee until later a month or two from that. After the text report announced on June 1st that they would take this case, the new president of the Dignity Hill Association issued a letter saying, our new art committee, which is being, and a couple of other people, hereby approve all of the decisions that the developers have made, which is that they won't comply with the conditions put down by the city manager. And they think that the condition, so for example, where the city manager says you must move the building away from the bridge, Mr. Burrow, who's the new head of the Dignity Hill Association, says we don't think that's a good idea. So we hereby have agreed with the developers that they can do whatever they want. They can leave it where it is. Thank you for coming. Thank you. So that's what's happened within days of this text report. And apparently the Office of Historic Preservation called a meeting of the Design Review Committee of the Historic Design Review Commission. And they also said, well, it's okay whatever they want to do. We don't think that the city's managers conditions should be required. So that's where we are. On last Friday, not yesterday, but a week ago Friday, we filed a motion in the district court saying to the court, look, the city is stumbling around trying to get a building put on that land before the Supreme Court gets a chance to rule on this case. And that's wrong. That's not fair. And we asked the district court to impose conditions on this automatic suspension of the judgment. So we asked that we were assigned to judge Laura Salinas and hearing before her. And we asked her to put a condition which she was entitled to do that the city not issue any more approvals for this project, any building permits at all for this project until this report gets a chance to decide on this. And that is a condition of the suspension of judgment. We also asked that she order or that she impose a condition saying that the city must issue a stock work order in case there have been some approvals issued that we don't know. Yes. Well, about six fancy lawyers showed up in court and the city argued that we were trying to change the judgment, bring in a new case, open the trial. They won the case. The order of specific performance shouldn't be enforced because of government. They just like said everything. And it's now been a week and Judge Salinas has an issued order. I understand that in that I'll call the court. Yeah, I did. I called them yesterday. What did they say? See if they had any response or should have made some sort of ruling on a Friday. Friday's hearing. Wednesday and by Wednesday are guaranteed that there would be a decision on our vote. Is that she after reelection? Yeah. Yeah, that's called yesterday. When is she after reelection? Yeah. There were like 35 and 38 people there. Yeah. Don't make me think twice. A lot of people have, you know, shared that she is a bit of a more fair judge and she does tend to look at cases like a little bit closer and maybe more compassionate and I may, you know, remember fingers crossed. I mean, you know, we're asking more than what a usual case would ask, but all we're really asking for is that things remain the same. So the appeal process can go on. I just want to stress to the group how grateful and thankful we are to Amy. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. Does everybody feel more valuable than Amy? Well, I just, I mean, I think all of us, you know, you can believe it. You can believe it. Democracy. You know? Exactly. It's like they're slamming it down, you know? They're doing everything they can to make sure that we don't hope for it. Thank you. Thank you for all your work.