State of the City Address
The Decade of San Antonio: A Big City transforming into a Great City

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But probably the best part about San Antonio is its character and sense of community. You can hear it in the stories of the Kelly workers who speak with pride about the work they did in defense of our nation and San Antonio's prominent role in it. You can see it in the faces of grandparents at high school and college graduations when they hug their loved ones, knowing that the opportunities will be there for them in ways that oftentimes in generations past, it wasn't for the older generation. You can see it on Mother's Day, not just in the living rooms of homes throughout the city, but also in the cemeteries among the head stones as thousands and thousands of San Antonians visit their gone loved ones. We are a city of real community and character, a city that is growing and that looks forward. A city that does not slough off its past but combines the two to try and create an even brighter future. San Antonio is a special city.

A few weeks ago we celebrated the beginning of the second decade of the 21st Century, and it's increasingly clear that just as a symphony orchestra depends not just on one instrument or one talent but on many instruments and many talents to make beautiful music, so, too, do those cities that will succeed and thrive in the 21st century depend on many elements, and in order to ensure our city in 2010 and beyond, San Antonio must take a certain path, a certain vision, must meet its mark. It's really not that complicated.

We have to make sure that we build up terrific brain power and create enormous opportunity to match that brain power, that we create a fantastic quality of life, a place that's vibrant and exciting and culturally rich, a place that people want to live, to work, and to visit, a place that is exciting. We have to make sure that we're responsible, that we get the fundamentals of city government right, that we're a safe city, that we're a city where people can move around conveniently, that we're a city that people feel comfortable living in.

In my own life, I feel very blessed that I had the opportunity to be born in this city, to grow up here and go to our public schools and come back and to pursue the career of my dreams as an attorney and in public service, and my mother was doubly blessed in that she got to see another one of her sons do the same thing. That is what I want for all San Antonio's young people. The best way that we can do that is to ensure that we create opportunity for them. My goal for San Antonio in the year 2010 is to see us create 20,000 net new jobs in this local economy this year.

Now that's not going to be easy, but if the last couple of years are any guide, we know that San Antonio has fared significantly better than most other places in the nation. Over the last nine months alone, we have seen the announcement of more than 4,000 new jobs in San Antonio, from Medtronic to Toyota, to Nationwide, our cyber command, the 24th Air Force. San Antonio has built a great foundation for the future, but we're going to make it better.

Over the last several years one of the things that we've seen as a need in order to position our city to better create opportunity has been to create one portal of entry, one economic development arm that could best represent our city, that could best ensure that San Antonio competes against the likes of Austin and Dallas and Denver and Phoenix and San Jose and Orlando and other places. And Sheryl Sculley and others, I see Wayne Peacock here, I know Graham Weston and Elaine Mendoza also participated in the effort to create a new model of economic development built on the shoulders of the Economic Development Foundation that has served San Antonio so well for decades now. To invest in that new entity, not just the responsibility to recruit companies to San Antonio but also the responsibility to market our city nationally and internationally, and the responsibility to ensure that we retain the jobs that are already here in our big businesses, in our small businesses, that we never take our eyes off the ball and we ensure that just as we look to other places to get companies to come and invest here, that we do everything that we can to ensure that the jobs that are already here stay here, the companies who have already invested, when they decide to grow, that they invest right here in San Antonio again. And I believe that we will accomplish that. The city council has already passed a measure. I commend county Judge Wolff and the county commissioners who just two days ago did the same. And we're looking forward to that effort because it's going to be great for San Antonio's business.

You know, almost 50 years ago now on November 21st, 1963, the day before he was assassinated, President Kennedy on his trip to Dallas came to San Antonio for the inauguration of the Brooks Air Force Base School of Aerospace Medicine and the aerospace medical center. And President Kennedy said at that time that "It is fitting that San Antonio should be the site of this center and this school as we gather to dedicate this complex of buildings, for this city has long been the home of the pioneers in the air." President Kennedy's words echo still today in San Antonio. We are still a city of pioneers. As we stand on the cusp of becoming the military medical training capital of the United States, if not the world, with a terrific investment at Fort Sam Houston. All you have to do is drive down 35 to see all of the fantastic construction there, and you know that something special is happening. And we will ensure that we capitalize on that investment by doing what we can to encourage technology transfer, by providing a fertile business climate for entrepreneurs to take advantage of that, by ensuring that we support our military on its successful mission as they defend our nation. The truth is that that has always been San Antonio's history, and so it is again. We also hear his words echo when San Antonio becomes the leading center for investment in cyber security and defense.

State of the City Address...Page 3