Updated 11:30 a.m.
Several dozen people braved the chilly winds at Alamo Stadium in San Antonio Saturday to hear Mayor Ron Nirenberg announce that he was running for a second term as San Antonio.
Nirenberg said, “All are welcome here,” then pointed to the construction cranes scattered across the city skyline.
“Those cranes mean growth," he said. "They mean jobs. They mean prosperity.”
He then touted 2018 job growth, claiming 33,000 jobs were created in 2018. He also said San Antonio is a safer city since he took office, saying the crime rate is at a 30 year low.
But the main message of his announcement was to "dream and think big."
“It’s no coincidence that this event is happening during DreamWeek because we should be quick to turn back anyone who says that the best days for San Antonio aren’t yet to come — or that we aren’t allowed to dream and think big in this city, he said.
"That’s not the city that we chose. That’s not the city we choose to raise our children in. We do big things, and we push the big rocks up the hill because we are San Antonians. And I believe San Antonio’s best days are yet to come.”
MORE | TPR's Bonnie Petrie at Alamo Stadium
Nirenberg - Curated tweets by teamvincek
Nirenberg was elected two years ago after serving four years as the District 8 councilman. Nirenberg, 41, is married to Erika Prosper and they have a son.
Nirenberg defeated then-Mayor Ivy Taylor. After a runoff, Nirenberg won with 55 percent of the vote.
During that campaign, he used a slogan of "building a city that you deserve," which focused on making San Antonio as an inclusive and compassionate city.
Two months after taking office, he launched the Mayor’s Housing Policy Task force, which helps low-income families purchase homes.
“We developed a comprehensive and compassionate housing policy something that was called for 30 years ago by Mayor Henry Cisneros. We finally delivered it and we're actually implementing it now. It started in the (fiscal year 2019) budget,” he said.
The draft framework was adopted by the City Council in September after spending a year in development.
Nirenberg’s latest project is ConnectSA — a plan to create more transportation options for San Antonio residents, including bus rapid transit. That project has begun its planning and public input phase.
“It's happening right now. It's going to produce some results almost immediately in terms of the rapid transit, the mass transit, that we've been needing that real game changer for San Antonio," he said Thursday.
Bonnie Petrie can be reached at bonnie@tpr.org or on Twitter @kbonniepetrie and Joey Palacios can be reached at joey@tpr.org or on Twitter @joeycules
