Malcolm Yates, chair of the East Riverside Oldorf Combined Contact Team, told the Bond Election Advisory Task Force that the East Riverside neighborhood lacks places for residents to meet and access services and asked the task force to recommend adding an East Riverside community center to the 2026 bond.

Yates said the neighborhood’s school population is overwhelmingly Hispanic or African American and that more than 90% of students are economically disadvantaged. "Between 80–90% of the residents of East Riverside area rent," he said, and added that many residents are immigrants. He said the neighborhood has one of the city’s highest crime rates and was selected for a U.S. Department of Justice grant for a community policing effort called the Riverside Togetherness project.

Ed Miller, identified in the meeting as an EROC officer and longtime community instructor at Austin Community College–Riverside, backed Yates’ request and described how a lack of public facilities complicates service delivery and community programming. "There are no public buildings in the target area where the community can meet," Miller said. He described delivering services in businesses and parking lots and urged the task force to consider funding a facility "to bring help to, to have meetings, to feed the hungry, just to try to bring services."

Why it matters: speakers said the absence of nearby parks and a community building forces residents — including children and seniors — to travel multiple miles to use recreational or social services, and limits the ability of nonprofits and city staff to deliver consistent programs. Yates noted city-owned parcels and former parkland that no longer serve the neighborhood.

Details and context: Yates identified two local pocket parks with very limited or no facilities and said the Montopolis Recreation Center sits two to three miles away from East Riverside’s densely populated apartment corridors. He told the task force the East Riverside contact team voted to add a community center as a formal goal and asked for a bond allocation in 2026 to build that center.

What was not decided: This was a public comment request to the task force; no funding decision was taken during the meeting and no formal project scope, cost estimate or timeline was provided by staff during the speakers’ remarks.

Provenance: Public comments recorded at the task force meeting; first related remark by Malcolm Yates at transcript block starting 224.30501 and final related remark at transcript block starting 399.16498.