Ronney Reynolds

* In 1995, Reynolds initiated an audit of the Drain-age Utility. Millions of dollars in excess funds were discovered. So for the 1995-1996 budget, Reynolds used $2.2 million of the excess monies to lower Drainage Utility fees, a charge assessed on your water and wastewater bill. For residents, the fee was reduced from $3.82 a month to $3.30 a month. The business rate went from $45.84 a month for each acre occupied to $35.67. The audit also prompted soul-searching at the utility, and led to a more specific spending plan.

* This past September, Reynolds convinced his colleagues to spend an extra $1.3 million on the Austin Police Dept., allowing increased patrol, police overtime, and community policing efforts.

* During his first term, Reynolds worked with neighborhoods in Northeast Austin to halt erosion along Little Walnut Creek. With the creek's bank moving inland, houses near the edge threatened to cave, but there was no city funding for erosion controls. Reynolds used his office staff and volunteers to determine a solution, persuaded the council to put a bond package on the ballot, and sent out fliers and walked precincts to successfully seek passage.

Kirk Watson

* During Watson's tenure as chair of the old Texas Air Control Board, Texas met all federal deadlines for compliance with the Federal Clean Air Act. Watson initiated the El Paso/Juarez Air Quality District, the nation's first cross-border pollution control zone. It will allow El Paso, Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, and Dona Aña County in New Mexico to carry out joint pollution monitoring in the highly polluted desert basin through an international task force.

* Watson started the Small Business Assistance Program, also the first in the nation. Designed to prompt small business compliance with the Federal Clean Air Act, the program included an office and ombudsman at the TACB to educate and oversee small business compliance.

* In late 1992, Watson, in conjunction with John Hall, former chair of the Texas Water Commission, created the environmental justice task force. Also the first of its kind, it looked at the cause and effect of environmental racism, and was initiated because of the "tank farm" issue in Austin (see main story). -- A.M.