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Pages tagged “COPS/Metro”

  • Texas IAF Underscores Lasting Consequences of Chapter 313 Subsidies

    [Excerpt]

    "In December, legislators killed a controversial tax abatement program known as Chapter 313, but its effects will last decades....

    “There’s no accountability at the statewide level; nobody administers it,” said Bob Fleming, an organizer with [T]he Metropolitan Organization of Houston who campaigned against Chapter 313 reauthorization back in 2021. “A bunch of local school districts make singular decisions based on what they think is in their interest. Nobody is looking out for the statewide interest. Local school districts are overmatched when the $2,000 suits walk into the room.” ....

    “It’s a perverse incentive,” said Doug Greco, lead organizer at Central Texas Interfaith, one of the organizations that helped shut down reauthorization of Chapter 313 in the 2021 legislative session.

    “We approach it on a school funding basis,” said Greco, who is already gearing up to fight any Chapter 313 renewal efforts in 2023. “It’s corporate welfare and the people who pay over time are Texas school districts.” ....

    “The district my granddaughter goes to is losing $4 million to $5 million every year,” said Rosalie Tristan, referring to Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District. Tristan is an organizer with the community organization Valley Interfaith who lives north of McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley.

    “They could be using that money to get more teachers for these students,” she said. “For a parent, or for a grandparent raising her granddaughter, it’s a hit in the gut.”

    [Photo Credit: Pu Ying Huang, The Texas Tribune]

    Critics Say State Tax Break Helps Petrochemical Companies and Hurts Public Schools, The Texas Tribune [pdf]

    COPS/Metro

    Written by COPS/Metro
    February 07, 2023

  • National Gathering of Ministers Features COPS/Metro Collaboration w/San Antonio Archdiocese

    CSM_Plenary_Gathering_-_3_Speakers_-_with_quote_and_color_(3).png

    At a national gathering of Catholic Social Ministers organized by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), COPS/Metro's work with San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller was featured prominently in plenary sessions and a workshop around local organizing for gun safety reform. 

    During a panel discussion with the Archbishop, Josephine Lopez-Paul shared how COPS/Metro worked with the San Antonio Archdiocese in the aftermath of the massacre at Uvalde in 2022.  The Archbishop made an impassioned plea to infuse love into a "culture of death" through faithful participation in the political process around issues impacting life, including gun safety reforms. 

    During the discussion, Archbishop García-Siller asserted that synodality could be renewed path for the Church to address the new realities people are living.  

    "The Eucharist that brings solidarity, through synodality, might be the new way of being Church."

    According to the Catholic Review, members in the audience were visibly moved.  COPS/Metro organizers and leaders also shared stories of local organizing efforts around gun safety including conversation campaigns leading to an initiative to restrict access to firearms for perpetrators of domestic violence in San Antonio.     


    2023 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering A ‘Sign Of Faith, Hope And Love Coming Alive’, Our Sunday Visitor [pdf]
    Groups Must Infuse Love Into a Culture of Gun Violence, Say Panelists, Today's Catholic

    COPS/Metro

    Written by COPS/Metro
    February 02, 2023

  • The Day Pope Francis Welcomed West/Southwest IAF Community Organizers to His Home

    [Excerpt]

    We were an interfaith group of 20 lay leaders, clergy and professional organizers from the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation, a representation of a decades-long tradition of community organizing in the United States, of which Catholic communities and parishes have played a major role. Parish-based organizing began in earnest with the founding of Communities Organized for Public Service [COPS/Metro] in San Antonio 50 years ago.

     

    COPS/Metro

    Written by COPS/Metro
    January 13, 2023

  • St. Thomas More Synod Leads to Parish Assembly Drawing 400 Parishioners

    [Excerpt]

    More than 400 St. Thomas More parishioners and community members participated in the St. Thomas More Parish Assembly on December 4 to grow parish leadership and respond to the needs of the community.

     

    COPS/Metro

    Written by COPS/Metro
    December 04, 2022

  • Ready to Work SA Earns Its Hype

    [Excerpt from San Antonio Report]

    U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh heaped praise on San Antonio’s city government for its expansive workforce development program, often called the largest of its kind in the country.  He said he wishes the federal government could do more.

    At a roundtable discussion with local industry leaders and city officials Monday, Walsh called SA Ready to Work — the city’s $230 million program aiming to train thousands of low-wage workers for middle-class careers over the next five years — innovative and exemplary for its heavy collaboration with industry leaders.....

    SA Ready to Work opened for enrollment in May, though many pre-registered. In the nearly four months since then, slightly more than 5,400 applicants have signed up — nearly fulfilling what the city anticipated to be enrollment through its entire first year.

    Outpacing both contractors so far is Project Quest, the jobs training nonprofit that (like SA Ready to Work) sprang out of COPS/Metro.  Project Quest is managing the cases of 112 participants.

    [Photo Credit: Alamo Colleges]

    San Antonio’s Ready to Work Jobs Training Program Gets the National Attention Leaders Have Sought, San Antonio Express News [pdf]

    Labor Secretary Would Like to See Bigger Federal Investments in Ready to Work, San Antonio Report [pdf]

    U.S. Secretary of Labor visits the Alamo Colleges District, Alamo Colleges District [pdf]

     

    COPS/Metro

    Written by COPS/Metro
    September 01, 2022

  • COPS/Metro Leader Virginia Mata Profiled in HEB Foundation Magazine

    [Excerpt]

    Everyone in San Antonio knows about flash floods—“Turn Around, Don’t Drown” signs are familiar on certain roads. But in the West Side, a neighborhood established by Mexican Americans who were restricted from more resourced neighborhoods north of downtown, floods were far more commonplace.

    “I remember as kids getting pulled out of the [family] station wagon [that almost got swept away],” Mata said. “We were at the time like five or six, I think. But yeah, we didn’t know that was not normal.”

    Mata says when you grow up experiencing poverty, “you accept it, normalize it, and blame yourself for it.” What seems normal at the time becomes absurd when you reflect back on it as an adult.

    Mata speaks softly and with a kind of wisdom that comes from navigating barriers early in life..... 

    Mata is retired from two careers—one in federal law enforcement, and another as a lietenant [sic] commander in the Navy Reserves. Nowadays, she spends a lot of her time with COPS/Metro, a community organizing coalition that gathers people from churches, schools, businesses and unions to represent the needs of families and children. Over the last year, Mata and her COPS/Metro partners have spurred the City of San Antonio to create and invest in a workforce training program designed to support people seeking higher-paying jobs.

    Retirement from her final job as a probation officer in Del Rio in 2018 brought her back to San Antonio, where she bought a house near Sea World that is still a close enough drive to her old stomping grounds. Those stomping grounds include Holy Family Church, Mata’s church growing up, which is also where COPS/Metro was born.

    The coalition’s first fight, all those decades ago? Demanding that the city fix the West Side’s drainage issues.

    Mata’s story is coming full circle....

    [Photo Credit: Echoes]

    Someone Like Virginia, Echoes [pdf]

    COPS/Metro

    Written by COPS/Metro
    November 17, 2021

  • COPS/Metro Celebrates TxDOT Fixing of "Death Curve" in Helotes

    [Excerpts]

    Crews have improved a curve off FM 1560 and Riggs Road that drivers called dangerous and deadly with the hope of fewer crashes in the area.

    In late 2018 improvements were made to the area to create better traffic flow. However, cement barriers created a new problem for drivers.

    Last year, more than 200 people packed the parish hall at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and voiced their concerns to Texas Department of Transportation officials.

    Lucia Hernandez attended the meeting and recalled being hit by a driver when she pulled out onto FM 1560. She blamed the cement barrier and said it created a blind spot.

    However, more than a year later, the barrier has come down, and in its place is a new guard rail.

    Catherine McCoy, the COPS-Metro Alliance leader, said the spot was dangerous to drivers, especially with the growth in the area.

    She and others gathered at the former problem curve Wednesday afternoon to celebrate the changes.

    “People should have a right to know that when they’re on the road that these roads are safe, that the engineers have designed it in a safe way,” McCoy said.

    [Photo Credit: KSAT]

    Drivers Happy With Changes Made to 'Dangerous' Curve in Helotes, KSAT [pdf]

    COPS/Metro Urges TxDOT to Address "Deadly Curve" Near Church and School, West / Southwest IAF

    Community Group and Parishioners Celebrate Changes at Controversial Intersection in Helotes, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]

    COPS/Metro

    Written by COPS/Metro
    October 22, 2020

  • COPS/Metro and Faith Leaders Recognize City Council and Staff for Policy Change

    [Excerpt]

    COPS/Metro in partnership with Community Churches for Social Action (CCSA), and the Baptist Ministers' Union (BMU), has recognized the effort and commitment of elected officials and city staff for revising the San Antonio Police Use of Force policy to completely prohibit, with no exception, the use of neck restraint (strangleholds, choke-holds) collectively referred to as lateral vascular neck restraint (LVNR), along with the use of no-knock warrants.

    "These policy changes certainly will not solve all of the challenging surrounding relationships between police and communities, but they do represent concrete actionable change that help confirm the city's commitment to live into the Compassionate SA ethos," read a press release from the three organizations.

    Faith Leaders Recognize City Council and Staff for Policy Change, Today's Catholic

    COPS/Metro

    Written by COPS/Metro
    October 15, 2020

  • San Antonio Report Reframes COPS/Metro Ballot Initiative as Opportunity to Celebrate Labor Day in November

    [Excerpt]

    About five years ago, COPS/Metro sought and won “living wage” minimum pay for City workers, resulting in raises for about 20 percent of the civilian workforce. They won similar measures from Bexar County, and some school districts followed suit.

    Now two measures on the Nov. 3 ballot offer San Antonians the opportunity to again help lower-rung workers.  Both involve a one-eighth-cent sales tax that for 20 years has provided funding to buy development rights to protect sensitive lands over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone.

    The first ballot measure would transfer those funds to provide about $154 million over the next four years for a job training program projected to boost the incomes of up to 40,000 workers. That’s an aggressive goal, but what gives it credibility is that its approach is based on Project Quest, a jobs training program designed by COPS/Metro 28 years ago.

    Interestingly, it was COPS/Metro and their sister organizations around the state that persuaded the Legislature back in 2001 to authorize local governments to spend money on job training and early childhood education. That same law, the Texas Better Jobs Act, permitted San Antonio voters to approve Pre-K 4 SA in November 2012. The highly successful preschool program is up for renewal on the ballot.

    [Photo Credit: Scott Ball, San Antonio Report]

    Election Day Ballot Will Let You Celebrate Labor Day on November 3rd, San Antonio Report [pdf]

    West/Southwest Iaf

    Written by West/Southwest Iaf
    September 09, 2020

  • COPS/Metro Among Heavy Hitters Called By Mayor to Win Voter Approval of Coronavirus Economic Recovery Plan

    [Excerpt]

    Less than two months before early voting begins, Mayor Ron Nirenberg has called in several heavy hitters to steer his campaign to use a sales tax to help residents get back to work after they lost their jobs to the coronavirus.

    The campaign, known as “Build SA,” faces the daunting task of figuring out how to break through a noisy November election to convince San Antonio voters to put more than $150 million toward a still loosely defined proposal that city officials estimate would help 40,000 residents get higher-paying jobs....

    The mayor has assembled a trio of co-chairs to lead the effort: Blakely Fernandez, a partner at law firm Bracewell and former Alamo Colleges trustee; Linda Chavez-Thompson, former executive vice president of the national AFL-CIO and a former VIA Metropolitan Transit board member; and Sonia Rodriguez, a leader of the local grassroots organization COPS/Metro.

    [Photo Credit: KENS5]

    San Antonio Mayor Calling In Heavy Hitters for Campaign to Win Voter Approval of Coronavirus Economic Recovery Plan, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]

    City to Ask Voters Whether to Redirect 1/8 Cent Sales Tax Towards Workforce Education, KENS5 [pdf]

    West/Southwest Iaf

    Written by West/Southwest Iaf
    August 21, 2020

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