Naked City
Fri., Nov. 17, 1995
OFF THE DESK:
Becky Motal, a financial planner for the Lower Colorado River Authority, announced her bid for Jackie Goodman's Place 3 seat on the council. Liquor store clerk Eric Silvernale, also threw his hat in the ring Tuesday for the seat left vacant by Max Nofziger... The Department of Justice announced its decision not to prosecute Travis County Sheriff Terry Keel for alleged civil rights violation in connection with his performance during last year's baby-murder investigation. However, one of the men who Keel claims tried to carjack him two years ago says he is looking for a lawyer to bring a defamation suit against Keel... On November 14, five public interest groups honored Senator Gonzalo Barrientos for, among other things, his attempts to block environmentally harmful legislation that would negatively affect Austin's quality of life... Speaking of environmental harm, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold is ready to deny abuses in a big way. Set your vcr so you won't miss the company's glitzy half-hour documentary on itself. You'll get four chances to view the show on Freeport's mine site on four different channels over the next few weeks.
Austin Community College's (ACC) board is gathering steam in its drive to buy land for a new campus in the southern sector of the city. Board members might make a decision at next Monday's meeting. Board members were surprised at their last meeting with an unsolicited analysis of ACC's service area population in the Southwest. The analysis, done by scientist and neighborhood activist Robert Akers, showed the population center to be north of William Cannon and near Manchaca Road -- not within the Barton Springs recharge zone. Two board members say the report appears to hold water. -- A.D.
Some public relations hack deserves a slap on the back for effectively, (if not tastefully), using a beloved symbol of childhood to promote big business at last weekend's Texas Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) convention. Sesame Street's "Big Bird" doll was displayed in a Texas Industries (TXI) exhibition booth to boost the company's image among parents and educators. TXI was a main target of a resolution opposing the burning of hazardous waste in cement kilns. Perhaps the yellow icon of good will melted a few hearts: the Texas PTA voted 628-471 to indefinitely postpone the measure. Curiously, similar pro-environment resolutions in Pennsylvania and Montana passed through their PTA conventions quite handily. Perhaps industry in those states should take a lesson from TXI. -- R.A.
Just what this city needs -- more Californians reading about how great Austin is. Like that front-page Travel Section piece in the L.A. Times last month on "Hot Austin Nights." The wide-eyed writer marveled that Austin is "a city where slackers, activists, students, techies, balding hippies, and artists and musicians now have nearly as much influence as developers and businessmen." Will wonders never cease? -- A.D.
God Knows Where She Is
Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the feisty, outspoken leader of American Atheists, Inc., hasn't been seen at her Austin headquarters or residence in almost three months, nor have many longtime friends and employees heard from her in that time. Along with her children with whom she works --son, Jon Murray, and her adopted daughter, Robin O'Hair -- she left town in late August, alluding to an unspecified "emergency" in a note taped the door of their building on Cameron Road. The trio, routinely termed inseparable, have not returned to the house they share on Greystone Drive, and the kennel bill for their dogs went past due. They broke with tradition by failing to picket the Pope's appearance in New York in early October, despite telephoning their press liaison that they were headed to the Big Apple for that purpose.
Still best known for her 1962 lawsuit that resulted in prayer being banned from public schools, O'Hair's latest move, if that is what it is, has given rise to a raft of rumors. The zaniest has O'Hair, who suffers from diabetes, dying in clandestine circumstances to prevent her other, estranged son, William J. Murray, a Christian evangelist and head of Citizens to Restore Voluntary Prayer, from praying over her corpse. "I've known them for many years, and I have no personal knowledge of them ever doing something like this," says American Atheists' press officer Spike Tyson. Acknowledging that he spends a good deal of time talking to reporters these days -- the story has been reported by USA Today, All Things Considered, and internationally as well -- Tyson says he doesn't think it is a media stunt. "It's just not their style," he argues, and O'Hair's history of making herself accessible to journalists supports him. At least two other close associates of O'Hair have told the national press that they know the trio is alive, but would not comment in more detail.
While O'Hair's attorney, Craig Etter of Washington, D.C., firmly rejects the notion that the trio have left the country, The Chronicle has learned that they may have access to a substantial offshore nest egg. According to David Travis, a retired Army officer who worked for American Atheists for three years before the disappearance, a bank statement accidentally appeared on his desk one day in March. It was from the New Zealand Guardian Trust Co. Ltd. in Manukau, New Zealand. Convinced by then that O'Hair was in the process of betraying her followers, Travis says he made notes before turning the document over to Murray, who handled all financial correspondence. The statement showed an account in the name of United Secularists of America (one of the groups in the American Atheist, Inc. orbit) containing NZ$1.27 million plus change, or about US$838,200 at the current exchange rate.
"It's perfectly legitimate," says Tyson, confirming the account's existence. "When you consider that this is an international organization, you're going to have accounts in several countries." Tyson adds that the organization has been audited "to death" by the Internal Revenue Service, and labels the expatriate theory bad speculation. "The moment you put in the word 'atheist,' all the good scenarios are thrown instantly out the door."
According both to Tyson and Travis, the trio did mention New Zealand as a place they might want to relocate someday, the way many city dwellers muse about moving to the countryside.
Conflicts at KUT
Management at KUT, Austin's member-supported public radio station at the University of Texas, issued new policy statements regarding on-air conduct and conflicts-of-interests to its employees last month. KUT staff were told to sign or else, say three on-air staff members.
As a condition of employment, staff members were told that they had to sign contracts spelling out certain behaviors that would not be tolerated. For example, the on-air conduct policy states: "KUT Radio does not tolerate...criticisms of KUT Radio or of The University...criticisms of other media, statements that contain or that connote a political bias or editorial judgment, and the like."
That policy verges on censorship, complains one on-air staffer. Another employee says it robs the on-air host of his or her soul and personality. "Where's the creativity and connection to the community? What are we supposed to do -- give the weather report and introduce a song?"
In addition, on-air staff had to promise not to work at any other station while employed at UT, and further, they had to agree that if they quit the station, they would not engage in any announcing activities for any other radio station within 50 miles from KUT's transmitter site for a period of nine months.
That policy could damage the ability of some KUT employees, many of whom only work part-time, to make a living wage, complains two on-air staffers. "It means that if I were offered some job to voice a comercial for a car company on some other station, I couldn't do it," says one, who questions the policy's fairness. "If this were a commercial station that policy might be considered standard, but here (at KUT) they are not investing huge sums of money in us."
When staff members asked the UT System's legal staff to clarify the new policies, the UT lawyers responded by declaring the employee contracts null and void until legal counsel completes its review. Some KUT staffers are hopeful that the contracts will be dropped altogether, says one employee, but he is less optimistic: "UT is not a democracy."
Two employees speculate that the recent budget-slashing trend in connection with public radio nationwide has KUT management looking for ways to protect itself. However, KUT general manager Bill Giorda gave no particular reason for issuing the new employee contracts except to say that the station's Washington, D.C. lawyers advised the action. As for the employees' opposition, he says, "Thats all part of the process." -- A.D.
Cars Versus Community
Last Friday Fred Kent of the New York --based Project for Public Spaces told west Austin business and neighborhood leaders that their city was at a crossroads. Austin will either develop into an urbane, cohesive community, he predicted, or become just another traffic-infested drive-through strip culture. Employing techniques to cut down on traffic volume and speed is the way to go, Kent said.
To illustrate how traffic engineers focus on "access" to the detriment of "place," Kent compared slides of a bank in Houston
on a major arterial to a pedestrian street in downtown Paris. He noted that the Houston bank was designed for direct entrance from a parking garage and with no orientation toward the street, which contained only speeding cars. "Yet the people that work in this building will pay thousands of dollars to go to Paris to see this," Kent said in reference to the street in Paris alive with pedestrian activity.
Kent advised local governments to redesign streets to include speed-slowing traffic circles, landscaped medians, and conversion of lanes to angle-in parking. An important first step is to convert one-way streets back to two-way, said Kent. "Austin has a downtown that you can get through faster than in just about any town that I've been in because all the streets are one-way," he said. "Ninety percent of the people are travelling through, going too fast to recognize anything here.
"We've designed our cities perfectly for undesirable activity and crime," Kent added. "Some gated suburban communities are so protected that they now have interior gated communities within them. People have become so isolated and fearful of crime that they have become house potatos."
Kent said that he plans to return to Austin over the next year to work with neighborhood groups involved in projects to restore community cohesiveness. -- N.E.
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