SAN ANTONIO – Local residents are once again making voices heard about Project Marvel.
Community meetings in districts three and 10 were held on Monday and Tuesday, and residents have shown up in full force to tell city leaders exactly what they think of the “transformational” plan.
Residents have a lot of questions. Mainly, who is paying for what, and how much? And is the city doing anything with the input from all of these community meetings, or are they just checking a box?
“Truly, there is not enough focus on what the needs of the residents are,” district three resident Brenda Pacheco said.
At both community meetings Monday, Pacheco’s sentiment was the prevailing one: There is a lack of care for what residents want. Many want more details on exactly who is going to pay for what — and how much.
Sinclair San Antonio reporter Matt Roy asked district 10 residents Louis and Erika Guzman if they would have preferred to have these meetings happen after more details on specific funding structure had been released.
“Yeah,” Louis said. “We need to know who is going to pay for it and how much they expect the taxpayers to pony up.”
“I don’t believe you’re getting the full story,” Erika said.
Roy then asked district 10 councilman Marc Whyte, “Why have the meetings if you don’t have all the details?”
Whyte answered, “uh, yeah that’s a great question. I would have preferred to see this first community meeting about a month down the road. But this won’t be the only community meeting… so that’s important.”
“We wanted to get ahead of it,” Assistant city manager Lori Houston said. “You either start early or you start late so we decided to start early.
But because of the lack of details, some residents feel like all these meeting are is the city checking a box and that everything is already a done deal.
“I hate to say it, but yes I do feel like there is a lot of concern for that,” Erika said.
Roy asked Houston, “Is that what’s happening here, or will there be actionable steps taken from this?”
Houston responded, “Absolutely not. We are doing this public engagement because we do need feedback from the community because something is coming in early August that is very important.”
That is when the council will decide whether to put a $250 million infrastructure bond on the November ballot.
And if that bond vote were held today, “I would vote no… And I would encourage everyone I know to vote no,” Pacheco said.
Houston described this round of input as phase one. She says there will be plenty of other opportunities for you to give input. Especially — after all the details are unveiled to the public.