Make Parks Great Again

Here is an update about the battle with San Antonio’s City Council to stop small city parks from being destroyed.
On Tuesday January 3, 2016 Richard Medellin, 2016 President of the Highland Park Neighborhood Association and John Whitsett of MakeParksGreatAgain, co-authors of the recent Express News Op-Ed “City goes too far helping Google”  are meeting with the newspaper’s Editorial Board.
Topics to be discussed include why the  Editors censored important parts of the Op Ed. Why has the Express News has failed to investigate  the city giving Google Fiber permission to destroy six city parks all over town.
Why is the City diverting tax dollars(12 member Fiber Team,  below market lease terms) to Google. Why the Development Services Department, who could not issue permits before Google applied for and received a Certificate of Appropriateness “COA” from the Historic Design and Review Commission “HDRC”,  issued seven permits in June 2016 without COA’s  .

Because of neighbors efforts to expose the truth, the City of San Antonio was forced to acknowledge their failure to enforce City rules against Google Fiber. As a result the City required Google to apply   and appear before the Historic Design Review Commission  ‘HDRC’ on December 21, 2016.
Despite overwhelming public outcry for denial, the Commission sent Google Fiber’s applications for a Certificate of Appropriateness back to the sub-committee for re-consideration in early 2017.
Neighborhood association members from Oak Park Northwood, Highland Park and Mission San Jose all presented overwhelming evidence against allowing Google Fiber Huts to be installed in City Parks.
Reinette King, Candidate for City Council-District 10 also spoke passionately calling for the City Council to issue fines against Google for their violations of City Ordinances. As did the MakeOurParksGreatAgain group.
The earliest date for return to the HDRC is mid-January 2017.  The City Manager’s office is pressuring the HDRC to issue the necessary COA’s to Google, after the fact, in an effort to justify their invalidly issued and therefore invalid installations.
Let’s restore backbones to our City Council. Please call or write City Council, the City Manager and the Office of Historical Preservation and tell them to Do the Right Thing. Enforce the law, Stop Destroying our City Parks and single family neighborhoods.

We need your help. We are working on a Petition to require the City Council to remove these invalidly installed industrial buildings in our City Parks and stop them from installing more as planned.. For more information on the Petition and how to help please go to www.votepop.net or www.makeourparksgreatagain.com.

Vote
Out
The
Encumbents
Protect
Our
Parks

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This update was written by John Whitsett, a concerned citizen and member of the MakeOurParksGreatAgain group who is actively involved in the fight for San Antonio’s parks.