One year after a 200-person assembly in which COPS/Metro parent and community leaders called for the demolition of a crumbling building that made the Beacon Hill Academy playground unsafe for its students, parents (and children) celebrated a victory.

The San Antonio City Council and Independent School District (SAISD) came to a negotiated agreement in which the building would be torn down in order to secure the playground and a new 'cultural heritage' curriculum developed for students.  

“It has been such a long process, and really our kids are even happier than us,” said Beacon Hill Academy parent and COPS/Metro  leader Jacklyn Landaverde. 

[Credit for Photo of Building: Bonnie Arbittier, Rivard Report]

City, SAISD Reach Deal to Allow Demolition of Historic Beacon Hill Building, Rivard Report

COPS/Metro leaders Sister Jane Ann Slater of the Congregation of Divine Providence (and chancellor at the Archdiocese of San Antonio) and Linda Davila of St. Timothy Catholic Church penned an Oped calling on the Mayor to prevent displacement in San Antonio.

[Excerpt below]

Mayor Ron Nirenberg and members of the City Council have expressed concern about the Decade of Downtown causing neighborhood displacement. Nirenberg said it best last year, “We should not be resigned to displacement as an acceptable condition in the community.”

COPS/Metro takes the City Council at its word, but actions speak louder than words.... 

COPS/Metro supports a thriving downtown and the benefits that UTSA’s expansion will offer. We do not support development that pushes people out of their homes and uses public dollars to do the pushing. We are against development happening so fast and furiously that existing residents cannot take advantage of the improvements. Development must be planned so that it benefits everyone, not just developers. As it stands, the city’s decisions benefit developers with little consideration for current residents.

[Photo Credit: William Luther, San Antonio Express-News]

Needed: A Displacement Prevention Plan, San Antonio Express-News  [pdf]

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[COPS / Metro Alliance] hosted a town hall at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Helotes, and invited Republican and Democrat incumbents and challengers for state and Congressional offices that represent West Bexar County and San Antonio’s south and west sides to attend and publicly state their positions on four issues: restoring Texas public school funding; immigration reform; reining in the “payday lending” industry; and increasing job training and re-training programs for displaced workers and in historically under-served areas....

Mendoza says COPS/Metro Alliance decided to become active in more conservative, affluent suburban communities outside the city's inner and outer freeway loops because emerging economic and social challenges are not defined by geography or political affiliation.

With the 2018 midterm elections less than three weeks away, COPS/Metro Alliance today launches a get-out-the-vote phone banking and canvassing initiative....

[Photo by Morgan Montalvo, WOAI]

COPS and Metro Alliance Spreading Message to the Suburbs, WOAI Radio[pdf]

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This fall, the biggest loser of the amendments proposed by the firefighters union will be local democracy. While much of the rhetoric focuses on the city’s AAA bond rating and its capacity to govern, COPS/Metro is primarily concerned about the loss of San Antonio’s democratic capacity.

COPS/Metro — a coalition of congregations, schools and unions working together on behalf of families — asked the city to drop the lawsuit on the evergreen clause and firefighters to drop the petition drive and return to the negotiating table. Neither side moved, and now the residents and voters of San Antonio are caught in the crossfire between “Go Vote No” and “Vote Yes” on the three charter amendments.

At its core, democracy is about negotiation and compromise...

Proposition A Will Undermine Democracy, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]

Four years after launching living wage campaigns in their respective cities, COPS/Metro and Austin Interfaith leaders celebrated hard won hikes in the lowest wages paid to municipal workers in both San Antonio and Austin. This week, both cities become the first in Texas to set a $15/hour wage floor for city workers. In Austin, this new standard additionally applies to contracted workers, part-time and temporary workers AND to employees of private businesses receiving economic incentives (more in next section).

Leaders also leverage increased city investments in long-term workforce development ($2.4 Million for Capital IDEA and $2.2 Million for Project QUEST) plus affordable housing (San Antonio). Bexar County announced that they, too, would pay their lowest earning employees at least $15/hour. Austin leaders successfully intervened for programs under threat of budget cuts, including PrimeTime after-school programming and parent support specialists in the Austin Independent School District.

Additional background:

Press Statement, COPS/Metro Alliance
Press Statement, Austin Interfaith
San Antonio Ranked Among Nation's Highest-Poverty Cities, Rivard Report
City of San Antonio boosts municipal wages (2015)
City of Austin passes 'Living Budget' and closes labor loophole (2015)

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For the first time in city history, the lowest-paid municipal workers are set to begin earning $15 an hour — a major victory for COPS/Metro Alliance, which has been advocating for a living wage for several years.

Scully to Present $2.8 Billion Budget with Flat Tax Rate, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]

[Excerpts below]

Immigration was the urgent topic when Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, MSpS took the stage at COPS/Metro's "A Cry for Justice and a Call to Action" assembly at Our Lady of the Lake University on June 18, 2018. "We live in very challenging times. Basic institutions of justice are being attacked. People are suffering needlessly," the archbishop declared to a packed auditorium. "This is a time of crisis. We have to make a decision. Do we go along with or challenge these trends?"

The assembly, which had been months in the planning, took on an air of urgency and drew a standing-room-only crowd as it coincided with a particularly tense week in the nation's debate on immigration policy. News had just broken of the Trump administration's policy of separating detained children from their parents - a policy Archbishop Gustavo strongly condemned in his speech as "immoral," "evil," and sinful," echoing similar sentiments expressed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops....

After [hearing a challenge by the Bishop and a DACA participant], faith communities caucused in small groups, then they answered... by pledging to collect 11,500 postcards to be mailed to Texas' congressional representatives in Washington. Archbishop Gustavo took the symbolic first step of signing his name on the first postcards, which will be mailed to Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn."

Archbishop Gustavo Urges Action on Immigration at COPS / Metro Assembly, Today's Catholic

San Antonio Archbishop Calls Separation of Families Immoral, Evil and Sinful, NOWCastSA