Statue won’t be placed at the Alamo
The claim: “Not only do George P. Bush and the GLO intend on moving the Cenotaph outside the boundaries of the Alamo; they also intend to erect a statue of the dictator Santa Anna and a memorial honoring the Mexican Army!” — Rick Range, former political opponent of Bush and founder of the Save the Alamo group.
Range was referring to a plan for the redevelopment of the Alamo by the Texas General Land Office, which is led by Bush.
PolitiFact ruling: Pants on Fire. Nothing in the redevelopment plans suggests Bush or his staff will include a statue of Santa Anna at the Alamo; Bush called the claim a lie and “flat out racist.”
Discussion: Range, who challenged Bush in the 2018 Republican primary, made the statement in a lengthy Facebook post . He was describing a Dec. 4 meeting of the San Antonio Historic Design and Review Commission, at which he said new information about Bush’s plans for the site came to light.
“I am not making this up,” he wrote. “We know that parts of the Bush plan were going to be horrendous, but it now looks like it will be worse than we ever dreamed.”
It’s true that the General Land Office, which Bush heads, has proposed moving the cenotaph monument, which honors those Texans who died at the Alamo, to a different location as part of the agency’s planned $450 million project to restore the Alamo.
Bush shared a series of tweets rebutting the allegations in the post and suggesting that the claim has racist roots.
“One must ask themselves, why am I being accused of honoring the murderous dictator Santa Anna?” Bush wrote. “Is it because my mother (now a naturalized citizen) is from Mexico? I was born in Houston, my wife is from San Angelo, and my boys were born — you guessed it — here in Texas.
“The idea that I would EVER place a statue of Santa Anna at the Alamo is patently false. Enough is enough. This is an outright lie, and is quite frankly, flat out racist.”
There is no mention of constructing a statue or monument of Santa Anna in the official synopsis of the Alamo Master Plan.
The only time Santa Anna is mentioned in the synopsis is during an overview of the different political factions present during the Battle of the Alamo.
San Antonio council member Roberto Treviño, who serves on the Alamo Master Plan Management Committee, told the Rivard Report that the statement is “baseless, and downright ridiculous.”
“Among the information and rumors being spread about the plan for the Alamo, this might be one of the most obscene,” he said. “We are honoring our
history; we are honoring the truth; we are honoring freedom. Erecting a statue of Santa Anna does none of these things.”
During the public meeting of the San Antonio Historic Design and Review Commission on Dec. 4, designers behind the restoration project sought the commission’s approval to start implementing the first phase of the plan, which includes landscaping and street improvements
— as well as the repair and relocation of the cenotaph to its new location.
Range, who was not present at the meeting, said he was told by others in attendance that one of the speakers presenting the project said there were plans to “honor Santa Anna” at the redesigned site.
“If you’re going to honor somebody, that is a statue or a memorial or a monument,” Range said. “I don’t know how else you would honor somebody.”
But multiple viewings of the archived video of the hearing show that none of the people presenting the project said anything about honoring Santa Anna or constructing a sculpture for him or the Mexican army.
The only mention of Santa Anna came at the end of the presentation, when John Kasman, vice president of PGAV Destinations, spoke about future phases of the project and some details still under consideration.
“There are multiple stories that occurred upon that south edge that deserve to be told,” he said, briefly mentioning the position of Santa Anna’s troops as one of those stories.
Range said this was not the remark from the meeting that concerned him — in fact, he said he thought a plaque showcasing the movement of the Mexican troops during the 1836 battle would be a “good idea” for the site.