Hundreds gather downtown for release of SA 2020 report

Culminating a six-month community visioning effort, Mayor Julián Castro and a steering committee of community leaders released the first official SA 2020 report on Saturday, March 19, 2011, at UTSA's Downtown Campus.

Mayor Castro was flanked by numerous new community partners who said they were inspired by the SA 2020 effort to expand existing public-private partnerships or create new ones in the areas of education, economic development, public health and safety, government accountability and the new energy economy.

The 135-page report was based on community input gathered at five public forums that attracted thousands of San Antonians in person, and hundreds more online, to dream about what San Antonio should look like in the year 2020.

“We set out to dream it, map it and do it, and this SA2020 effort has been about the first part of that — dreaming it. It is not a list of projects; it's not even a strategic plan,” Castro said to a crowd of several hundred gathered Bill Miller Plaza on the university's downtown campus. “It is a set of aspirations for our city, the dreams that we have for ourselves, the targets that we have in mind to reach by 2020. And this report is the culmination of that first stage, but in the coming years, the most important part is how we get on the mapping it and the doing it.”

The effort, which included meetings around the city at the TriPoint YMCA, St. Mary's University and McCollum and Roosevelt high schools, was led by three tri-chairs and a 21-member steering committee. The tri-chairs are Darryl Byrd, managing director of Pearl Brewery, Sonia Rodriguez, a local attorney and chairwoman of the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women, and Graham Weston, chairman of Rackspace Hosting.

Among the announcements made on March 19 was the formation of Brainpower Initiative task force to scour the educational landscape for proven programs that could move the needle in one of three areas:kindergarten readiness, dropout prevention and college matriculation. Mayor Castro named USAA President and CEO Joe Robles Jr. and H-E-B CEO Charles Butt as chairman and honorary chairman to identify a potential sales-tax proposal to take to voters in November 2012.

The other partnerships include:

SA Reads

Community-wide effort being led by Rotary International District 5840, Literacy San Antonio (LSA) and San Antonio Youth Literacy (SAYL). In the area of education, targets third grade reading proficiency. Specifically, a new corps of volunteers will scale up a successful, but small program pairing struggling second grade readers with volunteer reading coaches to 104 new schools next year, with a goal of getting all third graders on reading level by 2020.

P16 Plus Council of Greater Bexar County

P16Plus will collaborate with 15 area school districts, not for profit organizations, Region 20 and early childhood focused organizations to agree upon consistent measurements and processes to determine and improve Kindergarten Readiness. The P16 commits to leading efforts to evaluate our progress and reaching the SA2020 goal of increased kinder readiness.

Problem Oriented Policing

The San Antonio Police Department is proposing to expand the use of the Problem Oriented Policing (POP) philosophy. The POP philosophy was utilized by SAPD during the Eastside Initiative last year. A POP project can be a portion of a neighborhood, business corridor or other targeted area. The philosophy relies upon street level officers to identify, coordinate, analyze, and track results and monitor for success. Officers will be able to coordinate the services of other City service departments if needed. Key City partners include Code Compliance, Animal Care Services, Solid Waste and Public Works. Going forward, SAPD has convened a group of commanders to outline the organizational shift needed to incorporate this philosophy citywide. The plan will integrate the City’s 104 SAFFE officers with the 50 Stimulus funded POP officers. The unit’s mission will be defined and specific in order to create the accountability system to track results. This reengineering of the SAFFE unit and the creation of accountability measures is also consistent with recommendations from the Matrix review of SAPD.

Partnerships with UTSA

• College of Public Policy will host a Great Cities Dialogue on April 22, 2011 to further SA 2020’s government accountability goals. The event will promote discussion on how to increase the number of persons running for City Council and other public offices.
• Data Collection and Reporting of key and supporting SA 2020 indicators. The Texas State Data Center will be the lead institute authorized to collect and interface with the various partners in the collection of data relevant to reporting on the Key and Supporting Indicators. The Texas State Data Center will work with individual partners in the development of agreements for data transfer and reporting to and between the UTSA.
• Hosting of the SA 2020 Office – provision of office space for up to 3 staff members on the UTSA Downtown Campus.

Centro Partnership

The Centro Partnership is a newly formed public/private partnership focused on creating a great downtown. It intends to embrace the downtown development vision created by SA2020 and follow up with a strategic plan that clearly defines implementation and funding strategies that will help create a great downtown that is truly the heart of San Antonio and serves as everyone’s neighborhood

Mission Verde Alliance Business Plan

The Mayor's Green Jobs Leadership, chaired by Larry Zinn, will be launching the Mission Verde Alliance with the Clean Tech Forum to coordinate the building of a 21st century green economy in San Antonio.

Body Mass Index/Weight Loss Initiative — San Antonio Medical Foundation

The Wellness Coalition of San Antonio has committed to adopt 30 local businesses with between 50 and 300 employees to provide a comprehensive BMI/Weight-loss program to improve health outcomes. The effort was initially piloted with 4 companies and will target obesity and overall health and fitness. Partners include the Food Bank, San Antonio Metro Health District, Kronkosky Foundation, Y.M.C.A, H-E-B, U.T.H.S.C.

Community of Churches for Social Action

CCSA member churches are committed to reaching the education goals outlined in the Vision 2020 report. CCSA’s initiatives include implementing a comprehensive mentoring process to ensure all youth have a meaningful relationship with a caring adult, and expanding college assistance to all member churches and all communities. Called Empower 21, the college financial assistance process developed by Grace First Baptist Church will be aligned with the Café College model.

To see a recording of the live webcast or to view the SA 2020 report, visit www.SA2020.org or www.NOWCastSA.com.