SAN ANTONIO – During KSAT’s Town Hall at Don Pedro’s restaurant, longtime South Side neighbor Lucia Saenz said she loves to visit Concepcion and Confluence parks.
Saenz said the scenery is beautiful and attracts many people from beyond the South Side.
“I’ve seen tourists there,” Saenz said. “Recently, I saw some young graduates using the beautiful scenery as a backdrop, so I was very proud.”
With an increase in visitors at Concepcion and Confluence parks, Saenz asked KSAT whether the San Antonio Police Department would increase their patrols of parks during the summer.
In an email sent to KSAT, a department spokesperson said park police typically do not increase patrols during the summer.
Park police maintain high visibility, the department spokesperson said, using a combination of vehicle, bicycle, foot and ATV patrols, but do not use drones.
Park Police’s Community Operations Resource Education Unit assists with park patrols at community centers at city parks, especially during the Summer, Spring Break and holiday camps when a lot more people use the parks.
Saenz also asked KSAT why vegetation at the parks is overgrown.
“There’s some overgrowth where the weeds have become big plants with stickers and thorns on them,” Saenz said. “They’ve overlapped into the trail.”
San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department handles landscaping for Concepcion Park.
The park is mowed every 21 days, a department spokesperson said, but rain and extreme heat can throw off the schedule. Recent rain made the ground too wet for their equipment.
The San Antonio River Authority handles vegetation maintenance for Confluence Park.
“If you’re not looking,” Saenz said, “you can get an eye poked out or stumble and fall.”
But Tommy Mitchell, the river authority’s watershed and parks operations manager, said some of the overgrowth is part of the park’s design.
“Some of the vegetation does get relatively tall when it becomes fully established and mature,” Mitchell said, “but the intent is for it to be a restoration landscape.”
From its inception, Mitchell said Confluence Park was designed to have a restoration landscape of vegetation from different ecosystems native to regions across Texas with the San Antonio River running through it.
In order for the plants to take root, Mitchell said the vegetation needs to go through its natural life cycle, including its growth pattern.
Therefore, these areas are considered no-mow zones, but he said their growth is monitored.
“We’ll back those off potentially maybe 10 feet off the trail,” Mitchell said, “just to make sure that folks aren’t interacting with them on the trail itself.”
Mitchell said river authority crews mow the short grass buffer to provide a four-foot buffer normally adjacent to the trail for visibility and safety along that part of the river.
Mitchell said, however, rain has also interrupted their landscaping schedule and once it does dry up, crews will get in to start mowing in those areas of Confluence Park.
Park visitors who have questions are encouraged to visit the San Antonio River Authority website, click Parks and Trails, and scroll down to select a park for more information. You can also call (210) 227-1773.