The dues-paying members of San Antonio’s century-old historic preservation group want to know why one of Fiesta’s largest and longest-running events was paused for 2027.
On Friday, they delivered a petition to the elected leaders of the Conservation Society of San Antonio, led by President Betty Bueché, requesting a special meeting, as stipulated in the organization’s bylaws.
The group wants to see past meeting minutes, a La Villita lease agreement, emails with the City of San Antonio, and more — and they want answers to the questions they came prepared to ask last week before a general membership meeting was abruptly adjourned.
Talk of a plan to move NIOSA to Hemisfair where the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures was located also concerns the members.
Several members who spoke with the San Antonio Report questioned if the relationship between the leader of the society’s newly created fundraising task force and talk of relocating the event to Hemisfair, where her daughter works, poses a conflict of interest.
Requests for comment from Bueché and Hemisfair CEO Melissa Robinson went unanswered. The City of San Antonio owns La Villita Historic Arts Village and Hemisfair, which is managed by the nonprofit Hemisfair Park Area Redevelopment Corporation.
The Conservation Society announced Sept. 16 it is pausing the society’s signature fundraising event, one of Fiesta’s largest and longest-running parties.
Organizers said they were pausing the four-night event next year in light of declining attendance and sales. The board voted 17-10 to suspend the event.
A week after the public announcement, the Conservation Society hosted members for its quarterly meeting at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Five sheriff’s deputies were on hand along with more than the usual number of members, according to those who attended the meeting.
“It was a very different meeting from our normal meetings — I can just say that,” said Terry Shoenert, who served on the society board for 15 years. “People wanted to know more.”
The agenda included 13 reports from various committees, including the first, second and third vice presidents, the Visioning Task Force and Strategic Planning Committee, and the Fundraising Task Force, led by Deborah Sibley.
The agenda did not include a report by the fourth vice president, who per the organization’s bylaws chairs NIOSA and has control over contracts signed in support of the event, not the president.
Such reports were standard in the past, according to Shoenert. The current individual in that role is Julie Terrill. A set of standing rules for board members requires those members to direct all media requests to the president.
Meeting slides obtained by the San Antonio Report from another source listed new ideas for raising money in lieu of NIOSA. Some of those ideas included sales of cookbooks and custom cookie tins, and event options like a smaller version of NIOSA at “another venue or another time of year.”
But several members said those ideas would be insufficient for the preservation work of the society.
At the very end of the meeting agenda, the floor was opened to new business and the members who had waited until that point to address the board about their decision to pause NIOSA.
Shoenert stepped up and asked to hear from Terrill, but was told she’s not on the agenda. After several minutes of questions, Bueché concluded the meeting saying their time was up per the rental agreement with the Botanical Gardens.
Dissatisfied with the board’s responses, the group also circulated the petition, gaining the requisite number of signatures to force the board to call a special meeting within 30 days.
Abbi Power, 30-year Conservation Society member, said the members’ concern is not just about the popular Fiesta event.
“I’ll be sadly disappointed if we don’t have NIOSA next year,” Power said. “But I’ll be even more hurt and upset if the Conservation Society doesn’t figure out a way to survive and fund the vitally needed things that we fund.”
The Conservation Society marked its 100th anniversary in 2024, and is credited with helping to preserve historic structures throughout the city, including the Spanish Governor’s Palace, the Rand Building, the Steves Homestead, the Hayes Street Bridge and more.
Among the eight requests in the petition is for past meeting minutes related to the future of NIOSA; input from La Villita tenants, including the new owners of the former Assembly Hall; the names and positions of all task force and executive board members who participated in the vote; documents produced by the task force on the feasibility of NIOSA; information on the society’s efforts to raise funds without NIOSA, and plans to reestablish NIOSA in the future.
The group also wants to know more about the agreement with the city to lease La Villita for NIOSA. When the society announced the pause, it cited the loss of space in the historic village as one challenge to continuing the event.
“We asked for the financial implications of the society not honoring the 10-year leaseback that we successfully got from the city last year,” said Power, who is incredulous over the reasons given for the pause. “The city doesn’t want us there? But we have a 10-year lease?”
A City of San Antonio spokeswoman provided a statement following the announcement regarding the use of La Villita.
“The city values its partnership with all Fiesta organizations and remains committed to supporting the celebration and working with partners on opportunities that keep downtown welcoming and vibrant,” read the statement from Kelly Saunders.
Twenty-year NIOSA volunteer Chris Celis first heard about the plan to pause NIOSA in mid-August, months after planning for the spring even had already begun. The leader of Celis’ group of volunteers who set up the booths and equipment for the event called him with the news.
“He told me the NIOSA office was shut down and two employees were let go,” Celis said. The staff was escorted out by law enforcement, he said.
When Celis asked why, he was told that the event was being reevaluated, “because we’re losing money, which we all knew was BS from day one.”
Celis said as a member of the NIOSA crew, he’s seen the finances and, while the numbers have been down since the pandemic, things are improving. “We’re not making the money that we should be, but we’re climbing out of that hole slowly,” he said.
He’s also not a fan of the proposal to move NIOSA to Hemisfair. For one thing, he said, Hemisfair already hosts the Fiesta music event, La Semana Alegre. Besides NIOSA should be held in what is considered “Old San Antonio,” he added. “It’s in the namesake.”
Schoenert and Celis said that in all their years serving as an officer and volunteer, there was never talk of cutting out NIOSA due to attendance decreasing and expenses going up.
The organizers raised some prices to help make up the difference, she said, and continued to pay the full cost for security.
But the new president came into office saying she didn’t like NIOSA, Schoenert said. In recent reports, Bueché has publicly said she wanted to save it.
A longtime member and officer of the Conservation Society, Bueché was elected president in June after a last-minute nomination from the floor. Patti Zaiontz was initially running unopposed and now serves as first vice president.
Schoenert said the members who signed the petition are ready for “round two” in the battle to save NIOSA, and it starts with transparency and revealing the audits and reports that justify the pause.
“Despite the challenges, it is a premier Fiesta event — one of the biggest, other than the parade,” she said. “I just think it’s important to carry on the work that we have done for 78 years,” for the sake of historic preservation.
“I love this city. I’m born here. I’m raised here. This is home, and very important to me,” Schoenert said. “I was always glad that I could do that and make it happen, and knew that I was doing something that was benefiting others.”
