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City leaders sat down for lunch today with business owners and residents of the east side in a "reinvestment lunch."
February 3, 2012 · Growth on San Antonio’s east side has been moving steadily along, according to city leaders. City Manager Sheryl Sculley says two years ago, the city began taking a look at reinvesting in the education, training, business, and residential areas for people who live on the east side. While she says there is a lot of work to do, she points to outreach opportunities that have gone up, while violent crime and the number of stray animals are down.
“We were able to reduce crime over the past two years, that is, very serious violent crime, by almost 19 percent. We did much code enforcement, hundreds of buildings in the community that were dilapidated, we were able to pick up twice as many stray animals and offer spay neuter services.”
Business owners like Janie Gonzalez have made a commitment to stay in the inner city. Gonzalez owns internet operations and cyber securities firm Webhead where the average employee earns $65,000 a year. Gonzalez likes what’s being done but still would like more support.
“Those of us who’ve been residents or business owners would have liked to see things move faster, but then I firmly believe progress, or Rome wasn’t built overnight, so it’s really nice to see some more growth and projects.”
Gonzalez says often times city leaders look at the big projects and overlook smaller ones that may help make an impact faster.
“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I just don’t believe it’s always the right way to do things.”
Just today, Sculley announced a Good Samaritan partnership with St. Philips College that will create a veterans outreach center. It may be one of those smaller projects Gonzalez says will help the community start clicking together. |
