At 91 years outdated, Phil Hardberger stands a trim 6 ft tall and has the vitality of a person who workout routines six days every week and serves on 5 neighborhood boards.
On a current day on the Northside park named for him in 2010, the previous mayor of San Antonio sported a duplicate leather-based jacket just like the one he wore as a B-47 bomber pilot in the course of the Chilly Conflict.
Nonetheless immediately acknowledged by most passersby, Hardberger gladly shakes their arms when requested, as teams of schoolchildren run and play unawares underneath the park’s huge cover of stay oaks and cedar.
Later this month, a statue in Hardberger’s likeness, the jacket tossed casually over his shoulder, might be unveiled at Phil Hardberger Park, a tribute to his time as mayor from 2005-09 and myriad contributions to town.
Molded in bronze by Laredo artist Armando Hinojosa, the statue might be put in quickly close to the doorway to the City Ecology Heart, additionally named after Hardberger, on the park. A pedestal will function a QR code linked to his story on-line.
Businessman and philanthropist Harvey Najim commissioned the statue of Hardberger.
It’s the newest in a sequence of statues Najim has backed throughout town lately, together with ones of former mayor and county commissioner Nelson Wolff and his spouse Tracy and beer magnate and philanthropist Carlos Alvarez.
Saying he was impressed with Hardberger’s contributions to town, Najim stunned his longtime buddy with the thought of a statue. “I can honestly say, not one time, not even the smallest, wildest thought ever got here to me, {that a} statue can be fabricated from me,” Hardberger mentioned.
However he gladly agreed when Najim instructed him how he needed the message of his efforts to make San Antonio and the state a greater place to be carried on to future generations.
What got here subsequent was a strategy of being “measured in methods I by no means thought attainable,” he mentioned, for the ensuing life-size, 7,000-pound statue which might be unveiled within the public park on April 28 with a non-public ceremony at 10:30 a.m.
Mayor of San Antonio
Hardberger served two two-year phrases as mayor from 2005 to 2009, at the moment the one fashionable mayor to not have served on council.
Within the opening months of his first time period, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, setting off an effort in San Antonio to welcome and take care of the tens of 1000’s of evacuees who have been displaced and setting the tone for Hardberger’s mayorship. Throughout that interval, Hardberger employed Sheryl Sculley as metropolis supervisor.
Along with shepherding the growth of the San Antonio River Stroll northward, Hardberger additionally labored to enhance inexperienced house within the metropolis with the acquisition of Voelcker Park, now named for him, and led a revamping of Most important Plaza. With Valero founder Invoice Greehey, he established the homelessness help nonprofit, Haven for Hope.
In his last days as mayor, Hardberger efficiently championed a change to town’s mayoral time period limits from two to 4 two-year phrases.
When he left workplace, he had an 86% approval ranking.
As a first-time mayoral candidate at age 70, Hardberger mentioned, “I introduced a variety of vitality,” but additionally maturity and political expertise. He was elected to the Fourth District Courtroom of Appeals in 1994 as a Democrat and retired as chief justice in 2003.
A 12 months later, he was on a ship voyage along with his spouse Linda, navigating waters alongside the East Coast within the 55-foot-long Aimless, when he determined to run for workplace.
“My opponents talked so much about how outdated I used to be, however actually, I had a variety of vitality, and I had a variety of artistic concepts that I had gathered from having lived and labored in so many locations in my life,” he mentioned.
Hardberger had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, re-created Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 solo flight from New York to Paris, sailed throughout seas, served a high-ranking submit within the Peace Corps in the course of the Kennedy administration, and is a chevalier — or French knight. All adventures chronicled in a domestically produced musical.
The son of a West Texas farmer dad and a schoolteacher mom, Hardberger grew up exterior of Lubbock and attended Baylor, Columbia and Georgetown universities. He sought the adventurous life his dad and mom by no means had.
After Baylor, Hardberger earned his Air Drive pilot wings. “My dad got here and I’ve by no means seen him happier,” Hardberger mentioned.
In San Antonio, Hardberger noticed methods town could possibly be made higher, he mentioned. What most drove him to hunt workplace was the prospect to make it extra stunning — and never simply in the way it appeared, he mentioned.
“I needed to convey again that high quality of life, the compassion of our individuals,” he mentioned. “I’ve by no means been in a extra compassionate place the place individuals will actually attempt to assist others. We have now an enormous coronary heart. I had nothing to do with that, however I found it, and it made every part else attainable in some ways.”
However throughout his time in workplace, a step again from a profitable authorized profession, Hardberger realized that the job of main a metropolis could be very time-consuming and all-encompassing.
“It most likely is one of the best job of my life,” mentioned Hardberger, whose resume contains a few years as a plaintiff’s lawyer and later serving as an elected appeals courtroom decide.
“But it surely additionally had the best alternatives for making errors, since you have been making selections day by day, often a number of,” he mentioned.
It’s why right now Hardberger sticks to what he calls a “supporting position” of the present mayor and council, declining to publicly voice an opinion on their efficiency.
‘Like a rock star’
Melissa Kazen, govt director of the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy, meets with him at the least twice every week, she mentioned, sharing the duty of giving excursions and assembly with stakeholders.
“On the excursions, it’s like a rock star,” when Hardberger is noticed by park-goers, Kazen mentioned. “They’re not shy about expressing their gratitude, both.”
In late 2020, he helped open the Robert L. B. Tobin Land Bridge at his namesake park, a $23 million mission to revive an ecological sanctuary alongside a creek hall. Shortly after, he suffered a minor coronary heart assault.
As we speak, as board president emeritus for the park, he’s additionally very concerned in a mission to rework the historic Voekler Homestead dairy barn on the park into an academic heart which opens later this summer time.
Hardberger mentioned he makes use of the park as others do, “to get pleasure from it,” but additionally to spend a while surveying, “to ensure that no one’s reducing down any bushes or doing something they shouldn’t be doing.”
When he walks its paths, Hardberger appears for trash and checks to verify the restrooms are working.
On a cool spring Wednesday within the park, a upkeep volunteer with the group Wildland Warriors, steps away from pulling brush to greet the previous mayor and park movie star the place he sat on a low wall of limestone.
“Due to this park, I obtained enthusiastic about turning into a Texas Grasp Naturalist,” mentioned David Willis.
Ever the park lover, Hardberger can also be serving on the board of the bold Nice Springs Venture despite the fact that he thinks it’s unlikely he’ll stay to see it completed.
“A technique that I feel that you just relax — perhaps not disappear completely — the concern of dying is being closely concerned in life as a result of it’s enjoyable and it’s intellectually stimulating,” he mentioned.
