Days after a divided San Antonio City Council voted to move forward on a controversial restoration project in Brackenridge Park, two local residents have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stall it on religious grounds.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of two members of a Native American Church, claims the 2017 bond project’s planned tree removals and bird mitigation efforts interfere with the members’ ability to practice their religion. It also claims the city has inhibited their access to a specific bend in the San Antonio River, making it impossible for them to practice core aspects of their religion and denying them their First Amendment rights.
The suit seeks injunctions to delay the project and the removal of trees until the plaintiffs and city can agree on a plan “that preserves the Park’s spiritual ecology.” U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery on Friday denied the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order that would have given them immediate access to part of a park currently fenced off.
The suit comes just a week after City Council approved a $3.5 million contract for the project’s first phase. The city was slated to begin construction as soon as the end of this summer or the start of fall, pending permits.
It’s the latest twist in a long-running battle pitting the city’s Parks and Recreation Department against a small but dedicated group determined to preserve heritage trees in a section of 343-acre Brackenridge Park.
The plaintiffs, Gary Perez and Matilde Torres, have been vocal opponents of the bond project throughout the city’s yearlong public input process. The two sat down with the San Antonio Report in 2022 to talk about their religious beliefs and their opposition to the project. They declined to comment last week on the lawsuit.
In the suit, Perez and Torres said they are members of the Lipan-Apache Native American Church, which believes the creation of life in the region began at the Blue Hole spring — the headwaters of the San Antonio River.
“According to their beliefs, the Park provides a special connection to the spiritual
world,” the suit states. “The shape of the San Antonio River within the park, the flora that surrounds the river, the constellations in the sky above — these come together to form a pilgrimage site for indigenous persons across North America. And they form one of the holiest sites on earth for Mr. Perez and Ms. Torres.”
The suit claims the city is in violation of the First Amendment, federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person Act and Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
In an emailed statement, City Attorney Andy Segovia said the city will “seek a speedy resolution to this litigation.”
“The voter-approved 2017-2022 bond project for Brackenridge Park includes rehabilitation and repair of the river walls,” he said. “Because of the historic nature of this area, proper preservation is critical for the protection of the people and wildlife who enjoy it.”
Barred access
A specific bend in the river, which some indigenous people call the Yanaguana, holds religious significance to the plaintiffs, according to the lawsuit. The bend is located at Lambert Beach, where the restoration work will occur and is currently fenced off due to safety concerns, city officials have said.
“The historic walls slated for restoration at Brackenridge Park — as well as several of the trees near the walls — are unstable and therefore unsafe for the public to traverse,” Parks and Recreation Department spokeswoman Connie Swann said. “The fencing at the park is intended to ensure public safety until the walls are restored.”
The lawsuit claims that from Feb. 3, 2023, to the present, the city has prevented Perez and Torres from accessing this part of the park to partake in worship. They are unable to enter sacred locations within the park to perform religious ceremonies or connect with the park’s spiritual ecology, it states.
“If Plaintiffs are denied access to the Park or its spiritual ecology is damaged, then they will be unable to practice their religion and forced to significantly alter their religious practice forever,” the suit said.
John Greil, an attorney representing the plaintiffs and a professor at the University of Texas Law and Religion Clinic, tried to gain the plaintiffs’ access inside the fenced area this past weekend so they could perform a religious water ceremony via a temporary restraining order, which was denied by Biery.
A long-fought battle
The City Council’s vote last week to move forward with the bond project was the culmination of two years of turbulence surrounding the Brackenridge Park bond project.
The project, approved by voters as part of the 2017 municipal bond, seeks to restore several historic structures in the park around Lambert Beach, including an 1870s pump house and 1920s-era retaining walls.
But after the city’s planning commission approved a project design in January 2022 that would have removed more than 100 trees, including nine “heritage trees” — defined as a tree with a trunk of 24 inches in diameter or more — a group of residents mobilized to oppose the project’s planning permission from the city’s Historic and Design Review Commission.
The commission tabled a decision, paving the way for a series of public meetings, a public apology from the city and a redesigned project that city officials said will result in the loss of less than half the number of trees originally slated for removal.
The most recent version of the project design, approved in April by the HDRC, slated 48 trees, including six heritage trees, for removal — fewer than half of the 105 the project had originally planned to chop.
The 48 trees targeted for removal include eight dead or dying trees, according to Parks and Recreation Department officials. An additional 19 trees were marked to be relocated within the park. The approved plan includes planting 26 new trees in the area.
However, a core group of tree preservation advocates — including Perez and Torres — have remained dissatisfied with the new plan. While much of their opposition has been focused on heritage trees, they have also linked the tree removal to the city’s efforts to reduce the size of a bird rookery within the park.
At every turn, the group has continued to fight the project moving forward. Because of the park’s historical designation, the project has required approval from the Texas Historical Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which opponents also sought unsuccessfully to block.
The San Antonio City Council voted 6-4 last Thursday to approve a construction contract with Amstar Inc., a local general contractor.
Bird mitigation efforts
Perez and Torres are not just fighting the removal of trees from this area, or for more access to the river; the lawsuit also seeks an injunction to halt the city from performing its ongoing bird mitigation efforts in the park.
The lawsuit claims the birds’ presence in the park is “essential for Plaintiffs’ religious practice,” and states the city’s efforts to remove birds from the park using wooden clappers, small pyrotechnics and tree pruning are “largely aimed at preventing the double-crested cormorant from nesting in the park.”
Since it first came before the HDRC in January 2022, project opponents have claimed the slated tree removal was about preventing birds from nesting in the park. While city officials at first denied that the project or tree removal had anything to do with bird mitigation efforts, early project documents showed the city’s parks department saw the reduced nesting area as a positive side effect.
City officials later apologized for denying the connection, but the city maintained that the rookery’s presence causes water quality issues and health hazards from the bird droppings that make parts of the public park, including a playground, unusable.
In February, the city resumed its annual efforts to dissuade birds from using the existing rookery by thinning branches, removing old nests and making unpleasant noises. The fencing put up in February by the city around Lambert Beach is screened off — again igniting protesters who claim the city wants to hide its activities.
Attorneys on both sides are now waiting for the court to issue a schedule for the case to be heard, said John Greil, an attorney representing the plaintiffs and a professor at the University of Texas Law and Religion Clinic, on Monday.
