Mayor Ron Nirenberg announced Monday that City Council will vote Thursday on a proposal to remove the Confederate monument and two cannons in Travis Park.
“It is time for San Antonio to relocate the statue in Travis Park and ensure that monuments to the Confederacy are placed in their proper context,” Nirenberg stated in a press release.
The decision bypasses a Council Consideration Request submitted in July by Councilmen Roberto Treviño (D1) and William “Cruz” Shaw (D2) that would have put the removal proposal before the Council’s Governance Committee. Treviño had previously told the Rivard Report that the Governance Committee, which decides what items are to be voted on by the full Council, would consider whether to bring the item to a full Council vote on Sept. 13 or 20.
As mayor, Nirenberg is the chairman of the Governance Committee and has the unilateral discretion to move any item being considered by the committee to a full Council vote.
“We have received extensive input from citizens who support and oppose relocating [or] moving the statue,” Nirenberg stated. “Hundreds of San Antonio residents have voiced their views directly to council in ‘citizens to be heard’ portions of our meetings and through phone calls and emails.”
Councilman Clayton Perry (D10) said he was troubled by the timing of a vote that promises to be controversial on the heels of the widespread flooding and damage across Southeast Texas by Hurricane Harvey.
“I am concerned because this item was posted on our Council agenda today without a proper briefing in B Session to fully sort out the details as a Council,” Perry stated in a press release. “Additionally, this concerns me because we are not allowing the public the ability to sit in citizen-led commission meetings, allowing our own district appointees an opportunity to do the role they were assigned.
“After this weekend’s events across Texas, it concerns me that we are rushing a divisive issue when we should be concerned with continuing to help Texas.”
Councilman Greg Brockhouse (D6) said the City’s Unified Development Code requires a decision on park monuments to lie with the Office of Historic Preservation, the Historic and Design Review Committee, and the City manager.
“It has become increasingly obvious [that] the Mayor will circumvent the process and change the existing Code to remove and relocate the Confederate Statue at Travis Park,” Brockhouse stated in a press release.
A citizens to be heard session will be hosted Wednesday night inside City Council chambers. Residents who register are given three minutes to address the full Council, and registered groups are given nine minutes to speak.
A session hosted two weeks ago drew an armed group of militiamen who told the Rivard Report they were there to protect one of the individuals speaking against removing the monument.
“I want to remind San Antonians that we welcome their comments and all residents should feel comfortable expressing their opinions openly without fear of intimidation as this discussion continues,” Nirenberg said. “While we have seen tragic events such as those in Charlottesville, San Antonio has had a civil discussion of the issues surrounding the proper historical context of Confederate monuments.”
It is not known to where the cannons and the 40-foot monument, which features a statue of a Confederate soldier atop a granite obelisk bearing the inscription “Lest We Forget Our Confederate Dead” would be relocated. The statue was unveiled in 1900.
The removal of Confederate monuments in southern cities has accelerated in recent weeks, following violence that erupted at a rally in Charlottesville, Va., at which white nationalists protested plans to remove a statute of Robert E. Lee from a local park. One person was killed when a man with ties to white supremacist groups drove his car into a group of counterprotesters.
Why in the world remove the two cannon from Travis Park? They are neither Confederate, nor Union and provide great photo ops for visitors. Everyone loves a cannon.
Anyhow, anyone versed in Texas history knows Alamo commander William Barret Travis (for whom the park was named) died at his cannon at the north wall of the mission-fortress.
This is a comment from another article on the Rivard Report. Hope this helps answer your question!
“Mark Tirpak @tirpakma on August 18, 2017 at 9:28 AM said:
I’m disappointed that Council has not steered any of the current conversation towards (re-)removing the two Confederate cannons from Travis Park — which were not in the park from approximately 2011 to 2014 (based on Google streetview imagery and descriptions of the cannons being placed in City storage).
According to the City’s history of Travis Park, the Confederate cannons were abandoned at the Battle of Valverde (in New Mexico — along the Camino Real as part of the Confederate / Sibley campaign for California) and retrieved by Confederate Major Trevanion T. Teel after the war and donated to the City. The cannons were parked in Travis Park in the late 1800s (close to thirty years after the Civil War ended and apparently considered controversial at the time — the ‘scoff of a later generation’) and have been moved around to various points within the park over the years as mobile weaponry.
The Confederate cannons do not serve to memorialize the Civil War dead and should not have been reintroduced in Travis Park as part of recent City of San Antonio ‘revitalization’ of the park — work supported, in part, by Southwest Airlines and the St Anthony Hotel (part of Marriott International Inc.).
The cannons should be returned to the battlefield where they were used and abandoned by the Confederates in their retreat back to San Antonio; Fort Craig, New Mexico (Socorro County) National Park Service would likely be the best recipient. At Fort Craig, the cannons could help to serve as a reminder of how the Confederacy was defeated in New Mexico in 1862, including with the aid of the ‘mostly Hispanic 1st New Mexico Volunteers commanded by Colonel Kit Carson’.
See:
Walking Tour of Historic Travis Park (City of San Antonio)
https://www.sanantonio.gov/portals/0/Files/HistoricPreservation/TravisParkWalkingTour-OHP.pdf
VALVERDE, BATTLE OF
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qev01
Fort Craig National Historic Site (National Park Service)
https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/el_camino_real_de_tierra_adentro/Fort_Craig.html
With that type of thinking every statue of founding fathers, North and South civil war statues (both sides) any statues involving any politician or soldier during any time Native Americans were being slaughtered, rounded up or kept on reservations. Any railroads, or anything involving railroads and persecution of Chinese Americans. And any WWII, statues with persecution of Japanese Americans. Mount Rushmore, our money because of the slave owners on them. Considerate soldiers, we’ll definitely. It’s not like they were American soldiers. What are we doing? Oh yeah what Hitler and ISIS have done and are continuing to do overseas. We don’t learn by erasing history or being hipicrits. Signed a disappointed American Veteran. P.S. freedom and protections from persecutions are rights in this country for everyone. I was proud to serve as an American soldier protecting those rights for every American past, present and future. May God help is all.