LAVACA NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION

Proudly Serving San Antonio’s Oldest Residential Neighborhood

P.O. BOX 831274 | SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS, 78283

PRESIDENT@LAVACA.NET | WWW.LAVACA.NET _________________________________________________

Officers and Directors

Melissa Stendahl, President

Sarah Sorenson, Vice President

Kat Doucette, Secretary

Nataly Jennings, Treasurer

Nick Melde, Planning

Amy Young, Communications Dir.

Vik Gudi, Membership Director

Marcy Newman, Transportation & Public Safety

Alonzo Alston, Lavaca Business Owner

Darryl Ohlenbusch, Historic Preservation & Zoning

Alma Gonzalez, Fundraising & Events

Jim Johnson, At Large

1. Call to Order

Meeting Called to order at 7:08pm

2. Introduction

  - Bylaws Updates

  - Open Board    

    Positions

• Introduction of current Board Members
• Bylaws – LNA Board has updated the Bylaws and we are voting tonight on whether to accept the updates. A link to the proposed updates have been sent out to the neighborhood and we have requested that neighbors review the proposed updates online prior to the meeting. The current updates are not open for amendment tonight, but if members have concerns or want changes, they can speak with Jim Johnson to make a note for future revisions.  
• Open Positions for voting tonight

• Vice President

• Currently running – Jim Johnson

• Appointed Positions

• Events and Fundraising – responsible for making sure LNA has a presence at City events, First Friday, Annual Membership Meeting
• Communications Director – maintaining website, maintaining announcements on social media and flyer distribution
• Neighborhood Development – responsible to stay on top of HDRC Hearings and development projects throughout the neighborhood

3. Catellus/SAHA Update

• Jessica Reynolds from Catellus presents status update about Victoria Commons development
• She discussed phases, project goals
• We will request a copy of her presentation so that we can share it with the neighbors
• Architectural Review Committee for Catellus

• There is an open position that is intended for the community to apply for, so they are putting the call back out until the end of January 2023.

• They request that applicants have a background in architecture, landscape architecture, or some other similar background.

• Questions from neighbors:

• Marcy’s concern about McMonigal Place -
• What consideration have they taken into stop signs and stop lights at intersections?
• How long before townhomes become Airbnbs?

• The City produces permits for Airbnbs, but Catellus has no control over personal ownership; however Catellus could possibly place limits via HOA.
• Councilman Bravo stepped in to answer this question. 3-4 weeks ago he filed a CCR to create a task force to check in with how many Airbnbs are allowed and regulated to review and enforce regulations. This was a community ask, and he is working to answer the ask. The City also just hired a new contractor service to regulate and enforce rogue Airbnb operators

• What does “a ton of trees” mean

• They’ll replant 65 trees. She is unsure about size of trees.
• The City’s mandatory tree mitigation plan was followed.

• Will they consider doing larger scale trees?

• Yes, they will consider it and see how they can implement it.

• How can they send future questions?

• Send a message in the messenger app at victoriacommonstx.com and you can also sign up for the newsletter on that website to stay abreast of new information.
• Email Jessica Reynolds at jreynolds@catellus.com 

• Have they determined Haul Routes for the development?

• She will get back to us.

• Will there be funds with the City to reconstruct some of the roads on the haul routes?

• Not currently, but they can look into it.

4. County Commissioner Rebecca Clay-Flores

• We have a new County Judge, Judge Peter Sakai. They had their second commissioners court today.
• The first 2 years Commissioner Clay-Flores works on building relationships with local councilmembers
• The next 2 years, she will develop relationships at the State Level
• The main issues she’s addressing:

• School Safety and Guns – she supports legislation to promote safety in schools. The proposal is to remove rights to guns for those who are deemed unfit, to raise the age for purchasing semi-automatic weapons from 18-21.
• Online voter registration system
• Mental Health – more funding from the State to support those who suffer from mental health issues.

5. Councilman Bravo and Stacy Jones

• Councilman Bravo is aware of the number of gunshots in the community to where community members no longer feel safe. They are getting a meeting together with other members of the City to address the issue.
• He encourages us to follow next week’s City Council meeting on Wednesday at 2 pm bc the City contracted a study with UTSA to determine where repeat offenders of violent crimes are committing again – they’ll get the results for that study on Wednesday to help determine next best steps.
• Re Catellus – the street going through McMonigal – Catellus is ready to put a sidewalk on their side, but they don’t have control over the other side of the street that is owned by the City so the ask has been made to the City to also put a sidewalk so that both sides of McMonigal have a sidewalk.

• The proposed sidewalk along the highway he supports, but Catellus is looking for an entity to maintain the sidewalk/right-of-way after it’s built. They are working to make that happen.
• Concern about the basketball courts going away – the bball courts are on Opportunity Homes’ land, not City land. He asked Opportunity Homes and finally got an answer that Opportunity Homes will likely remove the courts in 2 years, so Bravo is looking into discretionary funding to build basketball courts elsewhere

• Questions from Community:

• There is an increase in homeless population with healthcare issues in our streets. What’s the plan?

• Since he has been in office, COSA has secured $45M to implement permanent supported housing.
• One of the issues is chronic homelessness for those with mental health issues, can’t hold a job, have drug abuse issues.
• If we create permanent supported housing with onsite case managers, it’s better for the homeless population and it costs us less tax dollars.

• Bond Money – what happened to the last batch of bond money (2017 & 2022)? We didn’t see it go toward sidewalk/street repair.

• 2017 was before Bravo was in office
• 2022 we got a lot of funding for sidewalks but it hasn’t been implemented yet, so please be patient

6. Joe Frank Picazo – Chief of Staff to Chief McManus

• Joe Frank Picazo is Chief of Staff to Chief McManus
• Homelessness – there are often underlying mental health issues

• They are working in coordination with Department of Human Services for long-term solutions
• If there is crime, call 911 or talk to your SAFFE officer
• In the homeless community there can be issues that undermine quality of life, so they partner with DSD to facilitate service delivery and relocate encampments.
• Every officer in the department receives training in crisis response.

• Question from community:

• Is there a way to get more patrol cars in the area?

• If they see trends from neighbor calls during particular times of day, there will be more officers in that vicinity at that time of day.

• Have they studied where the gunfire is coming from?

• They ask that we call in any time we hear gunfire, but he notes that there is a different response to random gunshots v. a caller viewing a shooting of a person in real time.

• How many patrol vehicles are in the area?

• There are 115 patrol districts, and each district has 1-2 officers

• Is there some place neighbors can go to find out information about who SAFFE officers are and where they are working?

• SAPD is re-vamping their website. Right now they can show a map of who the SAFFE officers are for each area.
• Neighbors can go to Lavaca.net to get more information about non-emergency, emergency, bus stop, and parking access phone numbers.

• There are 121 SAFFE Officers City-wide with each assigned to 1-2 neighborhood associations. If there are concerns about specific SAFFE officers from neighbors, please report it, and they will look into it.
• The UTSA project of violent crime reduction plan – its 3-pronged program which will take place over 3 years. There is also a case-processing study. Over the course of the next 2-3 years we’ll see several studies with UTSA in conjunction with SAPD.

7. Traffic and Parking Initiatives

• LNA asked Councilman Bravo to get a comprehensive traffic study. He went to the City, and the City told him it would cost $250k and that he would need to pay for it with D1’s discretionary funds. Just this week the City came back and said they’ll pay for it with City funds to make sure LNA gets a comprehensive traffic study. The City said now is not the time to do it because there’s too much construction going on, so they’re concerned that we won’t get accurate data.
• Councilman Bravo is pushing back on criteria for traffic calming measures because some of the criteria doesn’t make sense – he wants to know what will make reasonable drivers slow down?
• Melissa Stendahl and Marcy Newman are working together with Councilman Bravo to have public works to come out during high volume events to check the areas for concern in North Lavaca. They have spoken about major pedestrian connectivity throughout the neighborhood.
• From Marcy Newman – one of the issues we see recurring is parking during events, trash in the neighborhood after events, etc. There is a sheet at the front of the meeting. She is asking neighbors to take a picture of it with all the relevant phone numbers on it for parking enforcement, etc. If you don’t like the way the parking situations develop around the new venues, we as neighbors should go to the HDRC meetings and speak about how the businesses impact the neighborhoods.
• Residential Parking Permit Program – it still takes a petition to make it work. If there are streets that want to petition, get the neighbors together to create the petition, and then it has to go to City Council to vote. She has petitions for Sadie, Vance, and Riddle streets. She is looking for street representatives to get the signatures, and LNA will work with those teams to make it happen.
• Call 311 for parking enforcement after hours and for litter pickup. It will take the entire neighborhood to continuously report in bulk in order to see results.

8. Tree Planting

• Eloy Rosales and Ellen Pitluk present about tree planting.
• If we want a tree in our yard, the City will give us a tree. There is a selection of trees we can choose from.
• Ellen and Eloy have forms we can sign so that they can help us maintain the trees.
• If the tree is on the right of way, the City will plant it for us. If it’s on our private property, we plant it ourselves.
• The program is for homeowners only, not to renters.
• Eloy & Ellen have driven around the neighborhood and identified 125 potential planting sites.
• “Street trees” are trees that are planted between the property line and the sidewalks.
• Questions from Neighbors:

• If the City has planted in front of my house that I don’t like, can I cut it down?

• If a tree has already been planted in the City Right of Way and a homeowner doesn’t like it, they shouldn’t cut it down because it’s an offense against the City Ordinance.

9. Results of Election

• Jim Johnson was elected Vice President.

10. Adjourn

Meeting adjourned at 8:52 pm