One of the proposals was the creation of a $100 million venture capital fund to bankroll green technologies, the adoption of a “green building code” that would eventually result in buildings with no carbon emissions and a push to plant 250,000 trees over the next five years. San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger served as a Peace Corps Staff member in the 1960's.
Hardberger looks to the future of San Antonio as a center for green jobs and investment capital, and lower energy costs
Hardberger looks to the future
By Greg Jefferson - Express-News
Mayor Phil Hardberger spent less time in his last State of the City speech Wednesday afternoon burnishing his legacy than he did setting out a sweeping sustainable-energy plan -- dubbed Mission Verde -- along with transportation and education initiatives.
In a 39-minute speech bookended by standing ovations, Hardberger detailed programs that, if enacted, would carve out San Antonio’s place as a center for green jobs and investment capital, and lower energy costs -- “a flagship, third Industrial Revolution city.”
He spoke to about 900 people, including many of San Antonio’s business and civic leaders, packed into a Marriott Rivercenter meeting hall.
“The future of our energy needs as a city and as a nation lies in the policy of sustainability,” he said.
One of the proposals was the creation of a $100 million venture capital fund to bankroll green technologies, the adoption of a “green building code” that would eventually result in buildings with no carbon emissions and a push to plant 250,000 trees over the next five years.
He also outlined to two education initiatives -- a mentoring program for middle schoolers and a program to establish college-saving accounts for children born to low-income families.
But Hardberger’s agenda would take more time to implement than he has left in office. Approaching the end of his second and last term, he’ll leave office June 1.
“Time slips away, stealing our plans, erasing our words, ridiculing our urgency,” he said, in a kind of coda to his time in City Hall. “Mercifully, we are judged not by what we did not achieve, but by what we did get done.”
He touched briefly on parts of his likely legacy: the record-breaking $550 million bond package that he ushered to voter approval in 2007, reform of the city’s strict term limits last year; Haven for Hope, a campus for the homeless; and the city’s care for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
