South East Bexar County Awareness:$5 Million Dollar Soccer Field in Southside Community
Would you see a sports center as a better option?
Southside Community Finally Gets a Park
The Southside community has been waiting on a sports park dating back as far as 2006. When Andrew Herrera (former Southside ISD board member, former ESD6 board member and coach for Southside's Little Cardinals football team) was a member of the ESD6 board, he was promised an athletic center and then just as quickly taken away. Instead of an athletic center for all sports, Commissioner Rodriguez broke ground on a $5 million dollar Soccer Field.
At the time that athletic center was promised; Mr. Herrera and the parents of the Southside Little Cardinals were attending functions and passing around a petition throughout the community to show support for the project. The amount of signatures is unknown, but they required a set amount of signatures in order to receive the funds from the county. Mr. Herrera and his group was also fundraising to match funding and was awaiting funds from a donor to pay for the facility.
Commissioner Rodriguez was then elected to the County Commissioner's position and Mr. Brewer was elected to the Southside ISD board. At this time, the project was scrapped.
Now, present day; Commissioner Rodriguez is push for a $5 million dollar complex for soccer. While it is a much needed facility for the youth of the far southern Bexar county area, the Southside Little Cardinals still don't have a facility. In today's economy, $5 million dollars is quite a bit of money to spend on a single sport complex.
There was also made mention of the fact that there are two "extra" acres for a fire station. This ties in with mention by ESD6 board president, Sylvia Ruiz Mendelsohn (Commissioner Rodriguez' campaign manager) at several ESD6 meetings; to the possibility of building the newly voted for District 6 Fire and Rescue station. When asked at a recent board meeting, Ms. Mendelsohn stated that they had applied for two loans from the government. One for the community center and one for a fire department. The community requested information on the loans and was only given information on the community center loan.
Some other questions come to mind about this complex.
- Where is the $5 million dollar funding coming from?
- What ties are there between the soccer field and the ESD6?
- Will the tax payers of the southern bexar county area be paying for a portion of this soccer field or all of it with tax dollars or loan dollars from the ESD6?
