Bitch Fest

And the people spoke. They came in droves -- bicyclists, health professionals, environmentalists. All focused on different issues -- the helmet law, privatization of city clinics, SOS -- but all were allies in their discontent.

A false atmosphere of change filled the chambers early on. Dozens of protestors applied for their three-minute rations of democracy. The fever spilled outside the Municipal Annex to the helmet-law picketers lining Second Street, and roared into the meeting hall every time the door opened. Mayor Bruce Todd issued decrees of silence. And the meeting hadn't yet begun. Who says democracy is dead?

Still, democracy had to wait a bit -- until after a prolonged executive session in which councilmembers scrambled behind closed doors to keep the city manager from jumping ship to the same post with a higher salary in Corpus Christi (see "Naked City," p.18). The successful outcome finally brought the occasion for which bicyclists have been clamoring for months: a public hearing, or more appropriate, bitch fest, on why "The Helmet Law Sucks!" (as their t-shirts and signs read).

The anti-helmeters and their bikes have attended meetings en masse since May -- when the council mandated that all velocipedists wear a helmet -- in a disorganized but passionate attempt to force a repeal. The council has expressed scant sympathy for their cause, viewing them as one step below cave bugs and one step above journalists on Austin's evolutionary ladder. At a prior council meeting, anti-helmeters had their speaking slots delayed for hours so the council could consider Eric Mitchell's Central City Entertainment Center. The inconvenienced multitude groaned. Mitchell shot back, "You just lost my vote!" Mayor Bruce Todd told the cyclists to shut up. And the movement's 19-year-old leader, political novice Becky Schleinkofer, left in tears.

But these days are better, with official recognition finally arriving last week in the form of a public hearing called by Jackie Goodman to air both sides and to consider proposed amendments. Goodman teamed up with Daryl Slusher to propose some concessions: to lower fines from $100 to $35, and to allow an out for those who can't wear helmets for medical reasons.

Yet the victories are minor; council is still as far away as Alaska from a repeal, but you wouldn't have known it from the ardor of the discussion. In turns reverently somber and unforgivingly acrimonious, 80-something speakers weighed in. Among them were a large number supporting the law, like a bicyclist with a head injury received while not wearing a helmet, plus doctors and nurses with figures and horror stories at the ready, and sincere humanity in their hearts.

"While there are people who don't like this law, you may just save their lives," one nurse told the council.

But too much of anything is not good, even benevolence, and many bicyclists decried it as an impingement on their personal freedom. After agitating for years to bring more attention to bicyclists' needs with regards to traffic, they are furious that the anti-helmet law is what they ultimately got. They intend to do everything they can to stop it, foremost obtaining a court injunction against the order on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional since the state, not the city, is supposed to enact vehicular traffic laws, they claim. They also plan a petition to force a referendum repealing the ordinance; and as part of it, Schleinkofer hopes to include measures calling for the expansion of bike lanes, the creation of new ones that cars cannot block, and a north-south thoroughfare solely for bicyclists and mass transportation. The council put off action on Goodman's proposal to lower the fines until the 15th.

Thence arrived the public hearing on the proposed privatization of Austin's 13 health care clinics. The clinics are federally funded, and patients without Medicare or Medicaid are guaranteed treatment.

But on the horizon, health care staff portend a bird of ill omen. They offer dire predictions that federal parsimony and increased competition for federal monies could cost the clinics $10 million over the next five years. Health and Human Services Director Sue Milam (who is stepping down September 1 to become director of corporate development at Austin Regional Clinic), doubts the clinics can survive, and has suggested that a committee of mostly health care staff study the effect of selling them off. But concern exists that Milam and other staff automatically favor privatization and created the proposed committee, devoid of doctors and nurses, to encourage it.

That concern resonated throughout the hearing, as more than 60 speakers pleaded with the council not to "sell out our clinics" (as their stickers read). Protestors primarily were clinic employees who, rather than express fear for the security of their jobs should the clinics go private, focused on the uncertain fate of the clinics' poorest patients in a profit-driven system.

Adding to the speculation that Milam has been greasing the privatization pipe was the allegation that the clinics have been left to flounder in order to hinder their ability to compete. In fact, the recommendations of a 1993 study to improve the clinics, called the Primary Care Effectiveness Review, had apparently been ignored. After questioning from Councilmember Beverly Griffith, Sharon Itaya, director of the South Austin Clinic, noted that recommendations for on-site management and more modern equipment and facilities had apparently not been acted on. Supporting witnesses from the audience testified, "We have pencils!" and "We're dinosaurs!"

Also, for the first time this year, city staff are suggesting a budget maneuver that some councilmembers fear intentionally darkens the outlook of the clinics' future. Staff wants to take
$1.5 million in federal funds from the clinics and put it into the city's general fund. The general fund would then reimburse the clinics. Staff say the measure will protect the clinics in case funds are cut this year. But Griffith's aide, John Gilvar, called the powers-that-be in D.C. and was told that federal funds are already certified for this year, and that the cuts, if they do happen, probably won't come for a few years. Gilvar worries that the budget shuffling creates a perception of an emergency when none actually exists.

With those latest wrinkles, the council isn't expected to accept, as is, the health care committee set to study privatization. Slusher, Goodman, Griffith, Gus Garcia, and Eric Mitchell will likely press to add nurses, doctors, regular employees, and citizens' groups to the list of management personnel. No date has been set for a vote.

The Save Our Springs (SOS) contingent got a chance to rest their vocal chords last week when Slusher won postponement of the piece de resistance of the council show -- whether to replace the Composite II ordinance with the more protective SOS water-quality ordinance retroactively for the period between December, 1994, and July 31 of this year. The SOS saga has already been delayed for three weeks, and will return September 5 (see "Naked City") As will the people.

This week in council: Labor day vacation.