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San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving city with something.

New happening every day.

That's why each.

Week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the.

Newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist.

Behind those stories.

Join us now.

As we go on the record.

With Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody.

Thank you for joining us for On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we are starting with what's happening with the long delayed plans to repair, renovate and improve parts of Brackenridge Park.

Here to tell us the latest about that is Chris Matri, who is with the Brackenridge Park Conservancy.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thanks for having.

Me.

The Historic Design Review Commission had a meeting this last week.

I was there, you were there about a phase two of these plans at the northern end of the park.

First of all, tell us about how these originated back from the bond project.

2017 and why they've been delayed.

Yeah, sure.

I'll go back contextually, you know, at one point in time, the project was one portion, one phase.

There had not been conversations about breaking the project context up into two different phases as a result of some of the burden, the tree mitigation, the river wall conversations that happened.

There was a discussion about the impact with the Army Corps having domain over the waterway area to be able to separate the two projects, because effectively the phase two portion, as we know it today, which is basically the pump house, the iconic pump house in Brackenridge Park, was falling down and deteriorating rapidly.

The Conservancy and the city, through the Office of Historic Preservation, focus on what could we do to not confuse or delay the restoration of this cultural area and take steps to preserve the history that is 100 to 200 years old?

I mean, the sake of a raceway date back to the 18 early 1800s and the late 1700s.

So you're talking to a space that is still intact in some respects.

But if you look at it today, it looks like a relic because of the lack of action on the phase two.

So they were separated out and in the DRC commission last week it was discussed only phase two context.

Phase one is not moving forward because the lawsuit is still out there and still in play.

And that's the lawsuit, over trees that we've heard about.

The Native American group has sued because they, say that's a religious area.

And that has been, I guess, on hold before the Fifth Circuit.

Now they want to appeal that to the entire Fifth Circuit.

A little background on this now.

This dates back.

Voters approved a bond issue in 2016 or.

16 or 17.

And so it's been delayed.

And the raceway that you talked about, people don't know what that is.

That was a race away from the northern end of the river, down to the pump house, where then it pumped water up to the city's reservoir.

This now and, the botanical gardens.

And that was to be restored.

The snake is there part of the original, one of the original Hezekiah's of San Antonio that irrigated the region?

And it looks like, creeks there now and empty.

And so that you want to restore to what it was decades ago.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Think about what we know today is solace, right?

But think about the time from George W Brackenridge.

Right.

The park is 126 years old.

But that's because George W Brackenridge gifted that land to develop a park.

And before he gifted it, it was the precursor to what we know as the modern day water distribution center for all of San Antonio, and allowed San Antonio to really flourish.

He had this robust systems of dams and weirs and pumps and Hezekiah's and raceways that moved water from the river right when the Blue Hole was bubbling up and spilling out into its confines.

And the river wasn't channelized like we know it today.

It really was allowed us to move water east and west right where it needed it to be able to have those flourish in those areas develop.

And even before his time, the cultural context and the historical context is there.

You go back to the Spanish colonial times, when they really developed the what was a precursor to even George W Brackenridge is modern day.

Well, public works I mean, water was pumped throughout the city, was pumped up north to the botanical gardens, as you mentioned, to be able to come and filter down to the east side.

By gravity.

By gravity.

And so that is still present in our park.

And I made the conversation.

I made the point in the commission like, is it better to read about history in a, in a textbook or see it in a museum?

Or is it actually better to live it and breathe it and see it in your own eyes?

It is still present in Brackenridge Park, and that is solely what phase two is about restoring that demonstration.

In the phase two that you presented to the, HDR CE.

The final vote was to put off a decision on that and to have a site visit, which I understand it was this week.

So they're going out there to look at that with city staff, and then they'll make a determination on what to do.

So now the Brackenridge Park Conservancy people may not realize is a private nonprofit group, that helps the city with this.

It's like, San Antonio Parks Foundation.

You are adding how much money to what the city was going to spend?

Sure.

We've raised approximately $5 million.

So it is a $10 million project.

So you can imagine we've raised, you know, 50% of what the city brought to the project to enhance it, to tell the story, to make this cultural icon reimagined in today's world.

Right, so people can see it, live it, understand how San Antonio really flourished as a result of this water distribution.

So yeah, we were excited to be able to do it.

We've had some, you name it.

Bexar county's chipped in money for this project.

H-e-b Titans of Industry and round San Antonio believe in telling this story.

And that story is still living and still there.

But it's just not flourishing.

And it's not obvious to anybody that visits it.

And there's emotion on the other side because, as we've heard about the tree issues people don't want, in some cases, people don't want any trees taken down, even though they are some of them invasive, they destroyed or are destroying some of the historic WPA walls along the river and some of the other historic buildings there.

What are you tell people about?

And they're concerned about the birds.

What's your response to those kind of emotional arguments?

Yeah, and that's the beauty about Brackenridge, because of how fond everyone in San Antonio is.

We have a lot of passionate people and their passion is not misguided.

It's not misrepresented at all.

But the reality is those trees are causing more harm in some of the areas of phase one than they are.

And they were never intentionally planted.

They grew up because of the lack of maintenance and deferred maintenance, and not being able to take care of Brackenridge Park that it needed to be taken care of.

Brackenridge Park is widely used, but the resources to invest in it haven't been there when it's needed it, and all we're trying to do is tell people that we care about the trees, too.

We don't want to see any tree loss.

We also don't want to see any bird loss, because we know that parks are for people, but they're also for the wildlife and the ecology.

That ecology right now is being harmed because it's not being properly maintained.

And the birds there was the issue of people with the city banging on things to try to get rid of them.

People called it a rookery.

But also I had heard, you know, there was so much bird refuge that they had to actually close off part of that area for a time.

Yeah, and that's true.

I mean, there was more bird droppings.

I wasn't here during that time.

I wasn't in this role.

But the reality is you couldn't walk on the concrete because you couldn't avoid the bird droppings.

And we also know that birds migrate.

And when they migrate, they bring in different species that are naturally occurring to Texas in terms of the ecology, the plant life, the shrubberies, the trees, the grasses.

And that's one of the issues with a lot of that space is it's got so many invasives into it.

The ecology of phase two, and to some degree phase one, are not what it was intended to be or not what it should be.

In the Texas, San Antonio landscape.

And looking ahead to and looking backward.

Actually, the plans have changed, as the input from the community has gone to you, you taken I don't want to say you, but the city has decided not to take as many trees or planning a lot of trees.

Tell us about how the plans have changed.

Some because of the input.

Yeah, I think and that's the great part about people being passionate about Brackenridge.

They're able to give their input and they're able to give context to the project.

Right?

They're able to make those impactful changes.

And we want people to continue to be having that opportunity for public engagement and community buy in to the project.

They shouldn't blindly accept the project.

They should come ready for ideas and suggestions.

I mean, that's why I'm in this business because I want to develop a top ten urban city park in Brackenridge that meets the needs of the community, and the only way to do that is really get input.

So my understanding from the delta between where the initial project started and where we are today, it's something like 75 less trees are being planned to remove.

That's impactful, that's significant.

And I really love that San Antonio stood up.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for coming in as we will continue to follow this story.

And thanks for your input.

Chris Maitri, the Brackenridge Park Conservancy.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Just last week, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr Day here in San Antonio, one of the biggest marches in the country.

One of the few times that we really focus on race and racism, and we usually see it as history.

But it is an ongoing issue.

And there's a book a San Antonio man has written called The Blessings of Forgiveness The Healing Journey of Blaise La Bay that touches on that and so much, many more things, including mental illness, suicide, family secrets, lies, deception, and what that means to someone growing up and as an adult.

Blaise Bay joins us here.

Just wrote this.

Really?

I thought a fascinating book and a full disclosure here.

You used to be my boss or one of them at channel four, but now I can turn the tables and ask you all kinds of questions.

But, this book, first of all, why did you write this book?

I it was something that was, very cathartic for me.

And it wasn't like I had pent up issues.

He was just one of those things, you know, over the course of time, understanding all of the things that had, happened and what I had gone through, I thought it would be something that would benefit others to be able to read and see that, you know, no matter what happens in your lives, you're able to overcome those with just trust.

But the biggest thing is learning to forgive.

Because if you can forgive, you can let go.

And it frees you for a lot of things.

Well, it's it's kind of back up here.

The cliff notes version and there's so much in the book is you grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, in a black neighborhood called Fighting Ville and tough neighborhood.

But your parents, you didn't know this until later, that the man you thought was your dad wasn't, and you found out later that your real father, committed suicide when you're five.

You knew him as a kind of family friend.

A lot of family friends turned out were your relatives.

But you didn't know that until high school or when you left.

Right.

Tell us about your parents.

That they couldn't marry, even though they were both in the black neighborhood and considered black, I guess, by the rest of the people.

But because of their skin tone, the different families said, no, you can't marry.

How did that work?

It's very prevalent in the South.

There's a term called the paper bag principle and a monk's, blacks.

If your skin tone is darker than a paper bag, you're considered outcast from the lighter skinned blacks.

And so there's a whole set of society, within the black community, especially in the South, where you have those that are considered paper bag darker than and those who are lighter skinned.

So there's, different parties, affiliations, places you can go if you are lighter skinned than you can if you're darker skinned, even though you're still considered black.

And now, fast forward, you, you know, live through more racism when you lived in Oklahoma, moved around, what do you think we can learn from this today?

What about colorism that a lot of us don't talk about, or racism in San Antonio?

I think the problem is, is that it's not discussed.

And it has become less overt.

And so, it's not only disguised, it's kind of swept under the rug.

What has made this country great is the diversity.

And when we talk about diversity, I always try to make this point, especially when they talk about Dei.

It's somehow wrapped into racism, but really the idea is wrapped into inclusion.

It's about diversity of thought.

It's about diversity of experiences.

And I think that's what's important.

And if we had those types of discussions, even here in San Antonio, think about what we could do and what we could become if we are inclusive of everyone.

Do you still see colorism in communities here?

Oh, most definitely.

Do you feel that yourself?

Oh, most definitely.

I mean, I live, in a neighborhood in Stone Oak.

There's a grocery store, a little community grocery store, and I would come from work, in a suit or tie, and still be followed.

Right here in San Antonio.

Right here to this day, and there will be, because.

You don't fit in in that neighborhood.

You're not expected.

There.

Yeah.

And in the Hispanic community.

And then when you go to different parts of town, you see that you talk to a lot of people.

Yes.

What I've noticed, and it's a little different in the Hispanic community, but there's still that colorism division.

My wife's Panamanian.

And one of the things that I've discovered is depending on the ethnicity, like, if you're Panamanian, it doesn't matter if you're light skinned or dark skinned, as long as you're Panamanian, you're good.

But that's not the same in all of those communities.

You know, there is a difference.

You know, I know there's a difference.

In Cuba from light skinned Cubans versus dark skinned Cubans.

Well, now you think that goes back to the caste system, the Spanish, instead of the slavery system?

Where I guess it was, you know, the lighter skinned people generally were working in the house of the plantation owner and the darker skinned were working out in the fields.

Yeah.

Now there is there is still that caste system, I think, amongst, a lot of minorities.

And it's just not blacks and Hispanics.

It's, it's along those lines that, for whatever reason, we cannot recognize or we've been taught to, somehow the darker your skin, the lesser you are.

But I think people forget, and and either forget or not taught that when you look at Egypt, you look at all of those things.

The pyramids, alphabet.

New numbers, systems.

Think about the Aztecs and what they created in Mexico with the pyramids and how things were calendars that were set.

These are very smart people.

But I think over the course of time we were taught, no, you're not.

And that's that's just not true.

Well, thanks for coming on.

Fascinating book you very much, Blaise la Bay.

The blessings of forgiveness.

A lot to learn in this book.

Thanks for coming in.

Well, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Randy, thank you.

Speaking on reporters roundtable this week, you could call it a kind of déja vu.

South of downtown, the old Lone Star Brewery, a developer, has plans for it.

Again, more plans.

And here to tell us all about it is Madison Esler.

City local government reporter for the Express News.

Thank you for coming in.

Now, you've written a number of stories about this, and I think one of them said another developer is taking a swing at the Lone Star Brewery.

Tell us about this and why it has taken literally decades since it closed in three decades ago, to come up with the latest plan.

Yes.

Lone Star has had quite a few owners, quite a few plans that have come and gone with no progress since the brewery closed in 1996.

The newest developer to buy it is South Star, a company based in New Braunfels, and they haven't said what their plans yet are, but they've done other large mixed use developments in San Antonio and in New Braunfels and elsewhere.

It's a hard site to develop, in part because it's big.

It's 32 acres, there's infrastructure issues with it.

You'd have to put in infrastructure.

Sidewalks around it are in rough shape and it's on the edge of kind of an industrial area.

There's some residential nearby across the street, but there are also industrial facilities nearby.

And people might not not want to live near industrial now.

But the owners before this great street from San Antonio, and I think it was midway from Houston, they had planned, this massive development, 1,000,000ft² of apartments, retail, restaurant, hotel, outdoor plaza.

I understand they didn't like the comparison to the Pearl, but it sounded like the Pearl.

And now the new partners had been talking about acquiring the old CPS plant in that area, and then the new properties, including the recycling.

So they would have, they were looking at 70 acres anyway.

And right now they control about 30.

What are they talking about doing with it.

Yeah.

So South Star is in discussions about buying the CPS Michigan Road power plant, which is across the river from Lone Star.

That power plant has been defunct for a while.

And then the new oil facility right next to Lone Star.

According to sources.

South star has not confirmed that and they haven't closed on the property.

But that would give them a very broad canvas to work with on both sides of the river.

It encompassed more than 70 acres, which is a ton of space.

They haven't said what they want to do, but you can do a lot with 70 plus acres.

And Kevin Kilby of, Gray Street again here in San Antonio, said they were kind of picky with what kind of developer or what kind of person and people they wanted to sell it to because they didn't want it to be just industrial warehouses.

Again.

Yes.

The site has been on the market up for sale for a couple of years now.

During the pandemic, which was tough because a lot of developments are not getting off the ground.

And more difficult developments especially have run into financing challenges.

And Kevin did say that they were very specific about who they wanted.

They didn't want a bunch of warehouses.

They didn't want to add more industrial development to the area, he said.

Sad.

Rutherford, who is the CEO of South Star, is the right guy because he has a more holistic vision and wants to create a community of sorts there.

And I understand that, South Star has also gone into other places before where developers have failed or they haven't been able to achieve their vision.

So South Star has come in and kind of revive the area.

Is that right?

Yes.

Mission del Lago and Vida, which are both on the south side, South star came in.

There were some other developers involved before they had put together hundreds of acres and had some big plans to do different types of mixed use development for various reasons that development stalled or there was very little progress made.

And in both cases, South Star acquired the land and has built different types of housing shops, schools, master plan developments.

Essentially, Vida is around A&M on the South side of that mission.

Dialogo is a little bit farther north than that.

It has a golf course.

And so in both of those cases, that's some experience amassing a lot of land and then building a bunch of different things.

Should we compare this to the Pearl?

I mean, it has been just because anything and an old brewery is going to be compared to the Pearl and a mixed use development, something upscale for young people, is that still you think the vibe that they give off to you that this will be?

I think it remains to be seen.

I think it could potentially be a little bit more affordable than Pearl, just given where it is.

It does have some historic aspects to some of the the structures that are still on the site.

And so Pearl, of course, rehabilitated some of the historic historic elements of Pearl.

So you could see that similarity to.

But I'll be really curious to see in terms of if there are restaurant shops, apartments, what those rents will look like, if it will be more affordable than Pearl, or if it will be, and maybe.

Some of the historic structure.

I'm not sure.

They had a big fire there a few years back.

And so there was some destruction of some of that old site.

Yes.

They've had quite a few fires that have really damaged the property.

People have gotten in there at different times to take pictures or to tag the buildings.

I think people have gone in there to get warm when it's been cold.

And so it's been damaged pretty heavily.

I think there was a fire there maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago as recently as that.

And so there are some historic pieces still standing, like the iconic smokestack, but other parts of the buildings are clearly damaged.

And these, that area is part of, a ters or a tax increment reinvestment zone, is that right, or West side or there's some kind of tax incentive zone there that the developer can take advantage of.

So the properties are actually in two different tax increment reinvestment zones.

Which makes it a little bit difficult.

I don't think that the developer has applied yet for that funding, but typically Ters funding is used for infrastructure and Grace Street, the previous owner, had gotten a deal to use terms funding to put in different infrastructure.

And so there's a possibility that South Star could also seek that same incentive or ask for more for the site and those other properties.

I know you're now local government reporter, but you've done a lot of business stories in the past, and now, can the market, you think, absorb this kind of development with all the development around the Pearl and on Broadway and other places?

I think that there's a lot going on in the downtown area now that will draw more people in, whether it's Project Marvel, the city's plans for the sports and entertainment district, whether it's some of the historic buildings downtown being rehabilitated, the Riverwalk, that section of the Riverwalk has been improved.

There's a lot more interest, I think, in investing in the urban core and living in the urban core.

And so I think that Lone Star potentially is kind of the next area.

And you're already seeing some of that.

You've talked about affordable housing in the articles.

And Terry Castillo, I guess you talked to her.

District five.

That's her district wanting more affordable housing.

Could they require that being done or some part of it being done there?

It could potentially be built into the incentives.

If South Star asks for some kind of financial package, whether it's a tax abatement or the church funding for infrastructure or other pieces.

I know that Councilwoman Castillo, that's very important to her, that there would be more affordable housing and really to the rest of council as well.

There's been a big emphasis with all the investment in the downtown area.

And finally, do you get a sense of a timeline on this?

I think it'll be a while.

South star has not said, but Grace Street said it would take them at least a decade to build out the whole development that they had planned, and so I would think that it would be a long time.

It's been 30 years, so why not?

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Madison, is there express news reporter who knows everything there is to know about the city business?

So much more.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can see this show again.

You can watch any previous shows.

You can also download it as a podcast.

Just go to KLRN.org.

I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.