More Funny Numbers From Strayhorn

Have you seen Carole Keeton Rylander McLellan Strayhorn's new TV ad? The one that claims her mayoral opponents, City Council Members Lee Leffingwell and Brewster McCracken, just “sat while millions intended for traffic improvement vanished” from Capital Metro?

As is so often the case in political ads – especially those from Strayhorn – it would be shocking if it weren’t completely untrue. View it below – commentary follows.

With this ad, Strayhorn shows she’s either a liar or completely ignorant of city politics and Capital Metro affairs. She claims in the ad that $85 million to $110 million of Capital Metro money is “gone.” Um, no it’s not.

If she had read my Capital Metro feature last week – or even the Austin American-Statesman feature whose headline she flashes across the screen – she would know that money is owed by Capital Metro to the city of Austin and other local governmental entities … and Capital Metro has every intention of paying it.

Granted, she may have been a bit confused by the slant of Statesman reporter Ben Wear’s reporting, which said that Capital Metro wiped out its savings on a “spending blitz” (um … on things that its customers need, including commuter rail) while owing this debt. As I note in my feature – and as Cap Metro has admitted – although controls on spending needed to be better, the transit agency is still solvent, still current on its obligations, and still on a payment schedule for the money owed. And as stipulated in its interlocal agreement with Austin, the payment can occur “as funds are available.”

Be glad Carole’s not running your credit card company. If you didn’t have every cent of your $1,000 debt already in your bank account, waiting to be paid out right this second, she’d start screaming that the money is “gone.”

As for the $137 million in “deficit spending” mentioned in the ad, Wells Dunbar addressed that some time ago in City Hall Hustle.

Seriously, do we want someone whose understanding of financing is this impaired running our city?