Texas City Councilman’s Campaign Using Intimidation To Silence LGBT Voices

By Jay Morris on June 7, 2013

San Antonio, Texas City Councilman David Medina, who drew attention on The New Civil Rights Movement after being endorsed by Mayor Julian Castro, continues to draw ire from LGBT people and their allies as he battles for re-election.

Medina, who has also received criticism from constituents for large staff salaries and failing to show at numerous city council meetings, appeared at a Governance Committee meeting in May wherein a council consideration request was proposed to alter the current city ordinances to provide for non-discrimination policies including sexual orientation and gender identity. At that meeting, Medina claimed that he was unaware of any cases of discrimination in the City of San Antonio, apparently failing to read news articles regarding several well documented incidents during his tenure as a councilman.
In response, Jennifer Falcon and Tim Sekinger, organizers with GetEQUAL Texas in San Antonio, approached Medina after the meeting and advised Medina of their concerns about his remarks, noting that there is no reporting mechanism for such complaints within the City of San Antonio. Mrs. Falcon then asked Medina if she can have all complaints of discrimination in San Antonio forwarded to his office.
With reporters and other witnesses present, Medina stated, “Yes, it is my public office.” Medina then requested Mrs. Falcon’s phone number and advised he would contact her about attending a meeting to further discuss the issue, which he never did. Mrs. Falcon then contacted his council office and campaign office to schedule the meeting, but her calls went unreturned.
“I was told there was no direct way to reach Medina,” Falcon said. “This surprised me as he is a representative of the people of San Antonio and paid with our tax dollars, yet he has ‘no way’ to be reached directly.”
Frustrated by the lack of response and determined to follow through on providing the complaints to Councilman Medina as agreed, Mrs. Price and fellow GetEQUAL Texas organizers started the Facebook page, David Medina Listens.
“We wanted to provide the community with the contact information we had for Medina, and we asked people to forward complaints of discrimination to him, or alternatively through GetEQUAL TX if they preferred to remain anonymous. It was simply a way for us to facilitate the agreement with Medina to accept the complaints.”
The Facebook page quickly gained momentum and four complaints were received by GetEQUAL TX within six hours. Mrs. Falcon could not estimate the number of complaints that went to Medina via the other contact methods provided.

“When we saw the complaints being posted, I sent an invitation to the page to Councilman Medina.  Shortly thereafter, all of us who were administrators of the page received notice that the page had been reported and removed for ‘bullying.’  We were shocked. Thereafter, each of us were temporarily blocked from Facebook. The councilman told us we could direct the complaints to his office, but with his failure to return calls, then actions he took to silence us and have us blocked from using Facebook, it became clear he was not acting in good faith. We felt shut-out of the political dialogue and decided further action was needed.”

GetEQUAL TX mobilized a few of their organizers in San Antonio, including Tim Sekinger who was present when Medina agreed to accept the discrimination complaints.  They lined up outside Collins Garden Library, a polling place for early voting in Medina’s District 5.
“The first thing we noticed were the giant David Medina signs all but obscuring the polling site,” noted Tim Sekinger, as the image, above, shows.  “We decided to hold up our own signs, which said things like ‘Have you seen me?’ with arrows pointing at his [Medina’s] signs and ‘No more discrimination.’”
The Medina campaign was not amused. Spokesperson for the campaign, Gina Galaviz, who repeatedly denied any relationship to the Medina campaign on the scene, began photographing the license plates of the GetEQUAL TX protestors. “I saw her taking the pictures, and decided to ask what she was doing. She responded saying that if we are going to be activists, we better be prepared to have our personal information published. It was a thinly veiled threat, but I had no idea at that time of the intimidation would continue like it did,” said Mrs. Falcon.
The group left their positions in front of the Medina signs to return home. Two participants in the event noted vehicles following them as they left. One vehicle, a white truck, followed closely behind a protestor, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation from the Medina campaign, on the highway, refusing to pass even when he slowed his vehicle substantially. It wasn’t until later that he was able to see the Medina sticker on the back of the vehicle. The second vehicle followed the protestor onto his home street, but continued on thereafter without incident.
“We were and are concerned for our safety at this point,” said Tim Sekinger. “We don’t know who was following the folks from the protest, it could have been campaign workers or simply supporters of Medina and in either event, we don’t know their intentions. They now know who we are, where we live and that we will tirelessly work toward human rights within our city, our state, our nation and our world.  There’s just no telling what these people may do next, but we aren’t going to let them intimidate us into silence. It’s ironic that we are reported for bullying and blocked from Facebook, while being bullied and intimidated by David Medina and/or his campaign; ironic and disgusting.”
According to QSanAntonio.com, Mrs. Galaviz was arrested in 2007 on charges of assault. This information contributed to the note of fear in Mrs. Falcon’s voice as she discussed the incident:

“We are a non-violent group. Our organization devotes substantial time and energy training our organizers on the Principles of Non-Violence enumerated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and many of us have been threatened and even been victimized by violence at events.  This was very different from those incidents.  It wasn’t simply reactionary, it seemed more planned and more like an all out assault on us, our families and our entire community.”

Medina is in a bitter run-off election for his District 5 seat on San Antonio City Council. His opposition, candidate Shirley Gonzales, has indicated previously that she supports the amendment revisions. Election day is Saturday, June 15, 2013, with early voting presently underway.
Jay Morris is a State Lead for GetEQUAL.org, a founding member of the Direct Action Network San Antonio and blogger at jaysays.com. You can find him posting randomness on Twitter or engage him in conversation on Facebook.