South Side Community Project Wraps Up First Phase

 Roughly 35 people attended a community meeting last week at Sweeney Elementary School as part of the Southwest Area Planning Initiative, which aims to give residents a say in the area's rapid commercial and residential development.

At the meeting, residents shared their concerns about the community's most-pressing issues. Brenda Fierro, who lives near Las Acequias park, says she struggles with the area's lack of health care and child care access.

"I have to look for people to take care of my children," Fierro, a mother of five, tells SFR through an interpreter. "I have two girls who don't get access to Medicaid. They don't get help."

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Miguel Acosta, who helped spearhead the community meetings last fall, had attendees fill out surveys to mark their biggest community concerns. Lack of public parks, health clinics and the area's high rate of crime came up frequently.

Ed Moreno, who's helping with the Planning Initiative, estimates they've held at least 25 similar community meetings since November. Acosta and Moreno are wrapping up the first phase and plan to open the next phase this month, which will target organizations and nonprofits in the South Side. The idea is to eventually build a master plan to present to the city.

City Councilor Carmichael Dominguez and Blanca Ortiz, a 14-year-old Capital High School student, also helped organize last Thursday's meeting.

Ortiz, who is working on a film documenting south side residents' daily struggles, says she had to press five people to attend the meeting. Residents are often skeptical that people in power will take them seriously, Ortiz says. Her biggest obstacle was convincing them that wasn't the case.

"Some people don’t take me seriously because I’m 14," she tells SFR, "but when they know I actually care and I want to participate and I’m enthusiastic about it, they see it differently."