Patrick, Bush now agree on Alamo project
There is a truce between Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush over the future of the Alamo.
During a hearing in the Texas Senate on Monday, Bush said he and Patrick have had meetings and are now in agreement on key pieces of a $450 million restoration plan for the Alamo.
“Had a great productive discussion with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick about the future of the master plan,” Bush told senators. “He’s fully on board with the next steps.”
That is a world away from last March, when Patrick was threatening to take the oversight of the “badly off track” Alamo restoration away from Bush’s General Land Office.
“If the General Land Office cannot handle this important job, and to date it does not appear it can, I will recommend we identify another entity to provide oversight,” Patrick said then.
A key bone of contention for critics of the Alamo Plaza redesign has been the proposed moving of the sixstory monolithic Cenotaph. There had been a plan to move that monument about 500 feet south to make way for a public-private project to build a museum and convert the plaza into a more open space, free of traffic and the Cenotaph. The monument honoring the fallen Alamo defenders sits at the north end of the plaza, where it was dedicated in 1940 as part of the Texas centennial.
The city of San Antonio had asked to repair and move the monument, but the Texas Historical Commission voted 12-2 in September to block moving it.
Bush made clear Monday that the Cenotaph is staying put.
“The Cenotaph ain’t moving,” he said.
Later Monday, Patrick agreed with Bush’s assessment of their concurrence.
“Importantly, we agree that the issue of the Cenotaph is resolved and the monument will not be moved,” Patrick said. “We further agree that the story of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo must be the central focus on any master plan design.”
Patrick had been a vocal critic of moving the Cenotaph and accused those trying to move it of wanting to “erase history.”
Patrick and Bush have been fighting over the Alamo for some time. In December 2019, Bush took to social media to blast false rumors that he was secretly planning to build a statue of Mexican General Santa Anna near the Alamo.
“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, flatout racist,” Bush said in a statement, noting that his mother was born in Mexico.
That triggered a rebuke from Patrick, who put out a statement accusing Bush of calling everyone who disagreed with the direction of the Alamo restoration project a racist.
“Recently, the GLO commissioner and a member of his staff have derided anyone who disagrees with the Alamo redesign as a small vocal minority who are liars and racists,” Patrick said in a written statement. “This is offensive and inaccurate. The 31 members of the Texas Senate represent over 28 million Texans. They are not a vocal minority — nor are they liars or racists.”
Bush accused Patrick of twisting his words.
In 2011, the Legislature put the General Land Office in charge of the management and preservation of the Alamo. Bush, the grandson of the late President George H.W. Bush, has led that agency since 2014, winning reelection in 2018.
During his testimony before the Senate on Monday, Bush also said the pandemic has taken a toll on the Alamo, dramatically cutting visitation. Before the pandemic, visitors generated $500,000 in revenue every month. But since the pandemic hit, that has fallen to between $50,000 and $75,000.
“Our visitations stopped to a halt,” Bush said. “It was not pretty to look at.”