The City is scrambling to save the downtown development group Centro San Antonio, after an embezzlement scandal that led to yesterday's resignation of veteran downtown leader Pat DiGiovanni as the group's director, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.'The Centro San Antonio board stresses that DiGiovanni, who is a former Deputy City Manager, had nothing to do with the embezzlement, which apparently included staging a phony 'audit,' but his resignation after five years at the helm of the agency was for the best.
"It is always disheartening to learn of any impropriety involving the City of any of its partners," downtown Councilman Roberto Trevino said. "Financial malfeasance is something we cannot and will not tolerate."
Trevino called for a full investigation 'detailing how this happened and how we will correct the 'deficiencies' which led to this unethical behavior.
But Trevino said the mission of Centro, which has worked successfully for the past decade to coordinate and lead the renaissance of the city's downtown, must continue.
"I am confident that the Centro membership and staff will work past this matter and continue to focus on cultivating and coordinating local resources in order to improve downtown," Trevino said.
Centro San Antonio was formed in 2010 by the City, the County, and downtown businesses in order to coordinate efforts to improve the central city, which was one of the key priorities of then Mayor Julian Castro.
In 2010, outside the tourist-heavy Riverwalk, downtown San Antonio was generally a hodge-podge of government and business buildings.
Today, downtown has bloomed into a thriving tech center, due to the Houston Street 'Tech Corridor' which includes Geekdom. The San Pedro River improvements are adding new energy to the long ignored west end of downtown, and the bustling Pearl and Southtown developments have led to the long awaited downtown H-E-B as well as new businesses, apartments and condominiums, and activities downtown.