Former San Antonio Mayor Howard W. Peak — finest identified for the community of mountain climbing and biking trails named in his honor — has died.
Peak represented District 9 on the San Antonio Metropolis Council from 1993 to 1997, and was elected mayor in 1997 after operating on a platform of addressing water, training and employment points.
He unseated incumbent Mayor William Thornton, who didn’t make the runoff with Peak and Kay Turner.
Earlier than getting into politics, Peak was an city planner with a grasp’s diploma in city research and environmental administration from the College of Texas at San Antonio. All through his profession Peak promoted the concept parks and pure assets had been a part of a metropolis’s core tasks.
“Howard Peak was a visionary mayor, a steward of our metropolis, whose kindness and mild type belied an intense focus that leaves a everlasting legacy in San Antonio,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg stated on social media on Sunday. “… Relaxation in peace, Mayor Peak.”
Peak graduated from Alamo Heights Excessive Faculty in 1967 and obtained his undergraduate diploma from the College of Texas.
He served as a metropolis planner for Metropolis of the San Antonio, taught city administration at Trinity College and owned a land improvement service firm.
Peak first developed the thought of placing trails close to flood-prone creeks whereas serving on town’s Zoning Fee.
That idea later grew right into a a lot bigger path community, now generally known as the Howard W. Peak Greenway Path System, which runs roughly 100 miles. It loops across the metropolis and connects to different paths with greater than 50 trailheads.
“I used to be doing slightly little bit of analysis about Salado Creek, and from that little bit of analysis, I spotted that we had a possibility to have a circle of hike and bike trails round San Antonio,” Peak stated in a 2013 video interview with then-Metropolis Council candidate Nirenberg. “I’m undecided there’s anything like this, however we’re making good progress on connecting the items that we’re constructing.”
Peak helped safe an 8 cent gross sales tax to fund the path system at first, which voters have permitted a number of instances since then.
The path system was renamed in his honor in 2013.
Peak additionally championed plans to guard San Antonio’s water assets, together with pushing a 2000 gross sales tax measure to purchase up land over the Edward’s Aquifer. Amid explosive development within the Hill Nation in recent times, that idea has been held up as a mannequin conservation efforts in Texas.
“Simply take into consideration San Antonio with out the Edwards Aquifer,” Peak stated within the 2013 interview. “Different cities have rivers, a few of them have coastal [water] sources, however for probably the most half, San Antonio will get its water from the underground system of the Edwards, and that implies that we have to be sure that we do all we are able to to protect it.”
Peak was reelected in 1999, and succeeded by Mayor Ed Garza in 2001, when Peak was term-limited from searching for reelection.
He’s survived by his spouse, Marjorie Bratten Peak.
