Many of Those Ducks Are Driven by Firefighters

Dear Editor,
    Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez might need a little history lesson on his little tiff with outgoing City Manager Toby Futrell and the Austin Duck Adventures request to use Lady Bird Lake [“Beside the Point,” News, Feb. 1].
    In 2003 I spoke to the council during citizens communication on the hardship lowering the lake annually poses to the company and to its part-time tour guides who have been predominately made up of firefighters. After speaking, Ms. Futrell spoke to me off the dais and said that some type of agreement could be reached and gave me the names of the appropriate city staff to make the Town Lake access happen. I passed this information on to Paul Mahler, the owner of the Ducks. By the time any agreement could be finalized, the lake was back up. And in the following years city staff changed, and nothing official was brought forth by Austin Duck Adventures till this January.
    This year it makes seven out of eight years the lake will be drawn down, and once again tour guide ambassadors of this city are without a chance to show the history and beauty of this city during those six weeks.
    And one final piece of history, Firefighter Union President Stephen Truesdell, the hand-picked successor to Martinez and political action committee chair of the firefighters during his campaign, was one of the first firefighters to drive the Ducks.