It would be impossible to list every street, park, school, or housing development impacted by COPS/Metro's hundreds of community leaders in the last 50 years. This is a list of their biggest accomplishments.

Neighborhood Improvements

COPS/Metro leaders worked with San Antonio Development Agency to build Vista Verde, a first-of-its kind low-income single-family housing development with access to job training and childcare.

Directed over $25 million in federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) and $2 Billion in infrastructure bonds to parks, street, drainage and housing construction

Got Out the Vote for large library bonds, resulting in eleven libraries built on the West and South Sides.

Created or rehabilitated over twenty parks on the South, West, and East Sides. Gathered signatures and lobbied for funding to build the San Antonio Natatorium, an olympic-size swimming pool on the West Side.

Organized to bring business development to the South and West Side, including Las Palmas shopping center and the first bank branch on the West Side: Broadway Bank.

Housing

Worked with the city to establish the San Antonio Housing Trust and down payment assistance program.

Leveraged bonds, CDBG funds, and private investments to build over 2,000 units of affordable housing.

Created a home rehabilitation program to repair homes of vulnerable residents. Current budget 14.5 Million.

Leveraged federal funds for Casa Verde weatherization of low-income homes to reduce energy costs with free improvements, like insulation, doors, windows, and duct sealing. Current budget: $3 Million.

Advocated for a $1 Million repair and maintenance fund for public housing.

Education

Leveraged over $2 billion in infrastructure and education bonds

Organized in the 1980s to ensure Alamo Colleges built Palo Alto College on the South Side, and got out the vote for the bond to fund construction.

Worked with governor Mark White and legislature to change the statewide funding formula to allocate a greater ratio to property-poor school districts.

Brought together businesses, communities, school districts, and universities to create San Antonio Education Partnership with a scholarship fund for public high school students. SAEP students have earned 25,000 degrees since the program started in 1989.

In the 1990s, secured over $15.6 million in city funding for After School Challenge Program, presently available in eight school districts at 132 schools serving 11,000 children.

Brought parents and teachers together through the Alliance Schools Initiative to improve neighborhood safety and classroom learning.

In the 2000s, changed state law to enable municipal sales taxes to be spent on human development, creating funding opportunity for Pre-K for SA.

In 2021, defeated Chapter 313, a statewide tax abatement program, preserving $10 Billion in public school funding statewide.

 Job Training, Living Wages

Created Project Quest, a nationally recognized program that has placed over 15,000 unemployed and underemployed high school graduates in long-term job training for high-skill, high-wage jobs. Participants increased their average earnings from $11,000 to over $45,000 / year, making Quest one of the most successful programs in the nation.

In 2021, as many were losing jobs in the pandemic, COPS/Metro brought the city and its largest employers together to create SA Ready to Work . COPS/Metro campaigned and won 77% of the vote to approve $200 million in funding. No other city in the U.S. has taken on a workforce project of this magnitude.

Helped write city guidelines requiring companies who receive tax breaks to pay a living wage with benefits.

Organized to raise the wages of the lowest paid workers at City of San Antonio, Bexar County, School District and Alamo Community Colleges to $15 per hour

[Photo Credit: Scott Ball, San Antonio Report]

Public Safety and Policing

Partnered with Community Churches for Social Action (CCSA) and the Baptist Ministers' Union (BMU) to support SAPD's policies banning no-knock warrants and choke holds.

Worked with SAPD to close nuisance bars and drug houses in residential neighborhoods.

Lobbied for bond funds to construct police and fire substations in under-served areas.

Worked with SAPD to improve police community relations and community policing in neighborhoods.

Lobbied for funds for a city program to distribute free gun lockboxes to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands.

Healthcare

In 1994, preserved the West Side's only major medical facility, bringing the Texas Diabetes Institute to a neighborhood with one of the highest rates of diabetes in the nation.

In 2009, lobbied Governor Rick Perry and the legislature to expand health insurance for children (CHIP).

In 2012, held workshops on the Affordable Care Act Healthcare Marketplace to help people access insurance through the new system.

Environmental Justice

In the 1970s, fought a gasoline storage facility on the East Side. Won safety measures for the neighborhood, passed a new ordinance that gave city council and the public a means to stop expansion of similar facilities. Won pollution controls in power plants and cement plants on the South Side, and prevented Kelly AFB from storing hazardous waste near a neighborhood park.

Forced a referendum in 1976 to prevent a shopping mall over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone.

Organized another referendum in 2001, collecting 60,000 signatures to force the PGA and local developers to negotiate for living wages and  environmental protections and monitoring for a golf resort over the aquifer.

Governance + Fiscal Accountability

Before 1978, city council was elected at large. The representation was majority white (with one Latino and one Black councilperson), and mostly connected to moneyed interests. When COPS joined the effort to change the city charter to create 10 single member council districts, they turned out the votes from the West and South side needed to win the fight. In the following election, for the first time, five Latinos and one Black candidate made a non-White majority on city council.

Successfully fought to lower utility rates after finding out that money was being used to benefit high-end developments rather than neighborhoods.

Led a statewide effort with sister organizations to lower property taxes for seniors.

In the 2000s, COPS/Metro argued that if businesses wanted tax breaks in San Antonio, they ought to pay more than poverty wages. COPS/Metro helped the city council write guidelines stipulating that any company wanting a tax abatement in San Antonio would have to pay a living wage to its San Antonio employees.

[Excerpts]

Leaders from the Southside Independent School District and COPS/Metro announced their new working relationship at a Dec. 3 physically distanced press conference.

Together they plan a listening tour, including monthly gatherings where district officials can get direct input from learners, their families and other residents about local educational needs.

There also would be what COPS/Metro calls “civic academies” as part of the collaboration.

Estela Sanchez, a COPS/Metro organizer and SISD mother, said she looks forward to partnering with the district to empower other parents, getting them and neighbors more involved in school-community initiatives.

Another COPS/Metro member and SISD mom, Montserrat Amador, said the importance of education can’t be stressed enough.

“Just a year ago, I was not allowed to enter the school premises for not having an American ID. Today, I am where the decisions are made and I will work with the district’s administration and Superintendent Ramirez to improve the quality of education of my children,” Amador said.

She added, “We don’t have to conform with the minimum. Our children from the South Side deserve the same education as children in the North (Side) of San Antonio.”

[Photo Credit: Courtesy Photo]

SISD Sets Sights on Community Engagement, Local Community News [pdf]

[Excerpts]

“That’s one heck of a bloated bureaucracy from the get-go,” said Sonia Rodriguez, a COPS/Metro leader who worked on Nirenberg’s Ready to Work campaign.

The city’s ideas drew fire from Rodriguez and others at COPS/Metro — a local grassroots advocacy group that actively promoted Nirenberg’s plan to use sales tax dollars over the next four years to prepare San Antonio workers for higher-paying jobs. The organization founded Project Quest, a workforce development program, more than 25 years ago.

COPS/Metro officials knew the city would have to create some apparatus to run the program, they said during an Express-News editorial board meeting Thursday — but not one as large as what the city is putting forward.

San Antonio already has organizations with experience in providing workforce development and “wraparound services” such as academic remediation, child care services and job placement, COPS/Metro leaders said. Therefore, there’s no need to build a brand new organization or look outside of the city for expertise.

“We’re saying that the city has resources available without going out to hire someone from the outside,” said Sister Jane Ann Slater, another COPS/Metro leader.

Instead, COPS/Metro officials said, the city should work with Alamo Colleges, Project Quest and existing organizations to bolster workforce development efforts. They have the skills to bring in applicants, educate and train them but need help in getting the graduates into jobs.

“This is the right time for residents and organizations to provide feedback on the administration of SA Ready to Work, and we value COPS/Metro’s input as we work toward the program’s summer 2021 implementation,” Nirenberg said.

COPS/Metro was a key player in pushing the workforce proposal.

...

For example, COPS/Metro targeted “low propensity” voters — typically younger, newly registered or infrequent voters — in 25 voting precincts to turn out for the measure.

'Bloated Bureaucracy': San Antonio Organizers Blast City Efforts to Enact Nirenberg's Workforce Plan, San Antonio Express-News [pdf]