SAISD voted unanimously to close Carvajal Elementary, a 76-year old West Side school serving families in one of San Antonio’s poorest zip codes. While the closure disrupts hundreds of families, COPS/Metro leveraged SAISD’s commitment of $28.6 million in bond funds to build a new, modern K–8 school on the West Side.

For generations, residents on San Antonio’s Southeast Side have grappled with robberies, shootings, and acts of violence in their neighborhoods and in front of institutions like St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church. After years of organizing, COPS/Metro celebrates a major victory - the groundbreaking of the new South Flores Police Substation to serve the Southeast Side community. This new facility will be the first police substation built in San Antonio in 30 years.

After 15 schools closed at the end of the 2023-2024 school year, COPS/Metro leaders participated in a heated public meeting on the potential closure of Carvajal Elementary School. Parents voiced concerns about losing their community and native tongue fostered through the school’s dual language program.

Credited by the San Antonio Express-News as "the loudest and most organized opposition" to a publicly-funded luxury arena on the ballot, COPS/Metro boosted voter turnout to historic levels and built leverage to negotiate project accountability and labor protections by holding the measure to a slim electoral margin.

In a recent Texas Public Radio discussion featuring prominent local reporters, journalists credited COPS/Metro with earning public trust and making a huge impact on the arena campaign—despite operating with a fraction of the resources available to pro-Prop B forces.

Texas Public Radio host and senior reporter David Martin Davies highlighted the scale of the financial mismatch:

“With very little money, they took on the Spurs… The Spurs spent well over $7 million for their star-studded saturation campaign, and they went toe-to-toe with them.”

“We were told there will be jobs for the communities, hotels, restaurants, stores — empty promises,” said Darīus Lemelle, a leader with St. Paul United Methodist Church - COPS/Metro.

“That we see leaders continue to allow these developers to take our tax dollars for private investment, I say no more.”

The meetings follow a public call by Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai for more clarity on what the project will cost and how it will be paid for before he could agree to a venue tax election requested by the San Antonio Spurs’ basketball team owners....

[T]own hall attendees... frequently expressed their ire for a proposed new stadium after several said the arena failed to deliver in terms of economic development for the East Side.

Many said they oppose any new taxes to pay for it.

“Our tax money is better spent on what the East Side needs — more green spaces, workforce development and opportunities, and affordable housing and access to healthcare facilities and quality health care,” said Stewart Blanton, also speaking on behalf of COPS/Metro Alliance.

After organizing the vote in 2022 to secure the funds necessary to build a new police substation in southeast San Antonio, COPS/Metro leaders at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church hosted a community feedback meeting and leveraged commitments to address homelessness, mental health services, and neighborhood services.

Public Voice Their Thoughts on New Southside Police Substation Plans, News4SA  [pdf]

Concrete Community Benefits are Now Included in Tax-Funded Downtown Project

Thanks to the intervention of COPS/Metro, concrete community benefits are now part of a partially tax-funded Downtown Missions Stadium project, thus creating a fairer deal for San Antonio residents, including those who will be relocated in advance of construction.

“When we look at this experience, we are keenly aware that doors were opened, conference rooms were made available and seats were placed at the table for billionaires, millionaires and developers,” said [COPS/Metro] leader Father Jimmy Drennan, referring to Missions investors, such as Weston Urban co-founder Graham Weston, a one-time billionaire."

COPS/Metro had been in negotiations with elected officials, city council members, city staff, Weston Urban, SAISD officials, institutional leaders, community leaders, and local residents.  COPS/Metro's complete statement and press can be read below:

[Excerpt]

...the City of San Antonio in partnership with District 3 Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran and COPS Metro are giving away free gun safety boxes.

People can get the boxes from 9-11 a.m. on Saturday at Southside Lions Senior Center, 3303 Pecan Valley Drive.

In a news conference on Tuesday, San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said the City secured $200,000 to purchase 4,000 gun safety lock boxes to be distributed in the community.

[In photo: COPS/Metro leader Rev. Rob Mueller of Divine Redeemer Presbyterian Church.]

City of San Antonio Set to Give Away Free Gun Safe Boxes This Weekend, KSAT [pdf]

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

[Excerpt]

"These slower-than-expected results have prompted even local advocacy group COPS/Metro, one of Ready to Work’s earliest and staunchest champions, to criticize the program for not doing a good enough job of getting job commitments from employers upfront.

The good news is that everyone involved with Ready to Work has demonstrated a willingness to learn from mistakes and adapt."

Garcia: By Frustrating Trial and Error, Ready to Work is Changing Lives, San Antonio Express News [pdf]

COPS/Metro Alliance leaders welcomed the Vatican's Emilce Cuda, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, for a tour of San Antonio's West Side, followed by a two-day conversation about faith, organizing, and the role of the Catholic Church in confronting the crises facing its communities.

[Excerpt]

Cuda met with local parish leaders and organizers, and toured neighborhoods that have been transformed by the work of the COPS/Metro Alliance in developing neighborhood infrastructure, housing, health care, job training programs, and other economic development measures....

Meeting with organizations like the COPS/Metro Alliance, as well as other communities/organizations in the United States, Cuda said, is helpful to this mission because they’re able to share best practices for and approaches to community organizing....Cuda said that this push for community organizing is in line with the agenda of Francis.

“[Francis] said the way to arrive to a better life is better politics, and the better politics to him is a social dialogue, and my work is how to help to his agenda, so to open different ways to build bridges, to start a social dialogue between people that have a different interest and different necessities.”

Vatican Official Says Pope Francis Will Cause New Social Dialogue in Argentina, Crux Catholic Media [pdf]