HISTORY

Gustavo L. "Gus" Garcia

Gustavo L. ‘Gus’ Garcia was the 49th Mayor of Austin and the first elected Hispanic Mayor serving in that role from November 2001 to June 2003. He also served three terms as a Council Member (Mayor Pro Tem, 1996-1998) and previously was an Austin Independent School District and Austin Community College District Board President and Trustee.

Gus has spent much of his life fighting for racial equality, health care, and children’s issues. As a CPA in private and public practice, he was also a crusader for fiscal responsibility and that included a commitment to people in need.

The City recognizes a need for a new neighborhood park. This recreation center and park was chosen as part of the 1998 bond election package to develop Austin’s parks and greenbelts. Construction was due to begin in 2001 but a downturn in the local economy forced delays.

Recognizing that this location would benefit all of Northeast Austin and serve as a hub for City services, the Austin City Council pressed forward with the planning efforts to build a park. With the support of nearby neighborhood associations, the City and community worked to ensure that the park and recreation center plans were not forgotten.

This portion of northeast Austin is very diverse with many residents who are recent immigrants to America. Multiple languages can be heard in the neighborhoods and many families can be found playing outdoors. This park will provide a space for many people, especially those in multifamily dwellings, to interact with one another.

History of the area

This particular site is unique in that it was formerly a portion of Fiskville, a small town that flourished at the turn of the century and even had its own post office built in 1873 In fact, the current Middle Fiskville Road that intersects Rundberg near I-35 was named after the municipality.

The land in this area was primarily used for grazing dairy cattle but was bought by developers in the 1960s and 1970 when Austin was experiencing one of it’s many boom There are now approximately 1300 households in the Windsor Park Neighborhood Association to the north of the site.

Demographics

Stonegate Mobile home Park lies to the immediate east of the site, several apartment and townhouse complexes lie to the west, and the southern boundary is a tributary of Buttermilk Creek. Fiskville Cemetary is adjacent to the property’s southwestern corner. Dobie Middle School may be found immediately north of the Gus Garcia Recreation Center.

The population in this area of town is growing rapidly and will include many new developments to the east of Dessau Road as development around SH 130 continues. This portion of Austin is home to large households of Hispanic families with a significant percentage of the under-18 population. The City of Austin is firmly established as an an emerging immigrant gateway into the United States from places like Mexico, Central America, China, India, and Southeast Asia.

Funding issues

When the City put the Gus Garcia Park and Recreation center back on the list of budgeted projects in 2005, the original amount for funding was about $5.5 million. That amount was intended to pay for both the park and the recreation center.

After the bids came back in the summer of 2006, all the bids were much higher than the original projections that were made before the original 1998 bond proposal. Consequently, the bids have now projected costs to be $6.5 million for the recreation center alone. There is now no funding for the development of the surrounding 47 acres of parkland that has already been purchased by the City.

The Austin Parks Foundation has offered their fiduciary services to community organizations that wish to raise funds for the construction of the park and use the Parks Foundation’s 501(c) status to do it. Several major companies around Austin have shown interest in funding a park project including Samsung and D.R. Horton Homes. Grants are also available through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for city hike and bike trail building projects.

Gus Garcia Rec Center

The Gus Garcia Recreation Center will have some very special art designed by artist Lars Stanley as a part of the Art in Public Places program, the center will feature a bronze, a life-size bust, of the former City Council Member and Mayor. The bust is the work of sculptor, Jose Antonio Garcia Guerra of Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. The sculpture is made even more special because the artist is not only a friend of Mayor Garcia but from Austin’s first Sister City, Saltillo.

Saltillo is the City of Austin’s longest established Sister Cities relationship. It started in 1967 and continues to be one of the most active associations. During his years as a Council Member and later as Mayor, Gus Garcia became a supporter and proponent of the program and developed stronger ties by initiating exchange programs between the two cities that included training provided by the City of Austin’s Hispanic Firefighters Association and the police department’s Amigos en Azul.