City apologizes for slip in park project
The debate over tree preservation continues as city staffers and concerned residents met for another public meeting about the contentious Brackenridge Park restoration project.
At the Witte Museum, the San Antonio Parks and Recreation and Public Works departments hosted a second community meeting Tuesday evening to gather input regarding the Brackenridge Park project, which is included in the 2017-22 bond package and calls for removing dozens of trees from the park. The city started the meeting by apologizing for its miscommunication about the project’s objectives related to a rookery — or breeding ground — of egrets in the park, which has become one of the most contentious issues to arise from the project.
City staff has repeatedly told residents that the project has nothing to do with the birds, an assertion that residents challenged after one of them requested the official description from the city that was submitted to the Historic and Design Review Commission in February.
According to that description, the proposed tree removal plan had a dual purpose: “to prevent further damage to the above ground historic structures” and “to prevent rookeries from developing and causing an unhealthy environment.”
“I want to validate what you said about the birds,” Assistant City Manager David Mccary said. “We wrote [the project description] ourselves. It was our mistake. But we have to own it.”
City staff has since said that they do not know who inserted the language about rookeries in the project description. They said it does not appropriately de
scribe the project, which they reiterated has nothing to do with the birds.
Rather, they said, the project is meant to restore and preserve the northern side of the park’s historic markers, such as the River Walls built in 1920 and the 1870 Pump House, which are listed on the National Register for Historic Places.
To complete the project, however, the city must remove 105 trees, including 10 heritage trees, which are deemed irreplaceable for their size and rarity — a detail that wasn’t widely understood until earlier this year. Since then, residents have challenged the city and called for tree preservation and compromise on the park project.
Others have questioned the city’s motives and have accused the city of attempting to destroy the egret rookery, which should be protected.
The project has since been delayed until later this year to allow for further public discourse. Four public meetings were scheduled.
Alesia Garlock, a San Antonio resident and wildlife advocate, played a video during Tuesday’s meeting that showed U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services personnel, who are working with the city, banging blocks together to scare away birds nesting in the trees. She said the banging reaches 120 decibels and is harmful for park attendees and children. She said they’ve been there every day for weeks.
Garlock and other advocates coined the phrase “stop the chop” and have visited the park frequently to “keep an eye on the city’s work.”
Daniel Armstrong, an artist and fellow wildlife advocate, also spoke about the birds at the meeting and presented a painting he made of dead egrets hanging from trees at the San Antonio
Zoo, which is next to the project site.
He is concerned that the birds — scared by the banging blocks — will flee to the zoo, where they are not welcomed either.
Rachel Wilkins, the project manager for the Brackenridge Park design team, said that while the project was never motivated by the birds, their presence was an issue to be dealt with.
“If anything, we didn’t want the birds to nest in the trees because we knew that we might be endangering their habitat,” Wilkins said. “The bird issue was never even brought up to the design team other than the fact that the Parks Department will need to figure out what to do with them if the trees need to come down.”
She said the banging blocks are a means to get the birds to move so that if the trees are removed, they and their eggs won’t be in danger. If the birds have
nests there, they might try to defend them.
Other residents at the meeting expressed concerns that the 2017-22 bond package did not originally mention the removal of trees as part of the Brackenridge Park restoration project, which felt misleading to residents, and that the city did not consult the Indigenous community before beginning work on the park.
For members of the Indigenous community, the park is part of their creation story, where the San Antonio River — or yanaguana as Payaya people call it — and the Blue Hole at Incarnate Word are culturally significant elements of their identity.
“These parks are really an ecosystem for all the residents, for the wildlife, for tourists, for everyone,” said Grace Rose Gonzales, a San Antonio resident. “It’s an ecosystem that is very delicate, and it hasn’t been maintained
for a very, very long time. And I blame the past leadership for not taking care of it.”
Gonzales and others have expressed intentions not to vote for the 2022 bond this coming election, stemming from their recently formed distrust in city government.
“I’m very skeptical of city bonds now,” said Terry G, a San Antonio resident. “I’m not sure I can vote for another one.”
In response, Mccary said that if voters approve the upcoming bond, the staff will revisit all the parks projects and ensure the process is more inclusive.
Members of the Brackenridge Park Conservancy also attended the meeting to voice concerns about the project being further delayed.
Lewis Ficher, a board member at the conservancy and author of a book about the park, said that reversing the decline of Brackenridge — which was relatively well-maintained until the Great Depression — is an enormous task and that supporting the bond project is critical to its future.
Lukin Gilliland, vice president of the conservancy, said he supports the public process but that time is of the essence for the project.
“Delaying the repairs on the walls can lead to collapse and impact the integrity of the river to safely convey floodwater and cause for erosion and mange to the trees and to the banks along the river,” said Suzanne Scott, state director for The Nature Conservancy in Texas. “It is critical that the plan achieve a balance between the safety of the people and the structures in the park and the health and well-being of the river and the habitat in the area.”
Some have pushed to move the historic walls forward rather than cut down the trees, which Wilkins said may be under consideration, though there are concerns about how that course of action would affect the park’s floodplain. She said an independent team of contractors was hired to evaluate whether it’s possible to move the trees.
The overall impression among most residents who attended the meeting was that it went better than the last one, at which residents didn’t have a chance to speak. The next meeting will be May 24, at which time city staff and the project team will go over residents’ concerns and start crafting a plan. The last meeting will be in June.
Nevertheless, some remain frustrated.
“I’d like to know what they’re actually going to do with these comments,” Garlock said. “We want our questions answered.”