Naked City
Off the Desk:
Fri., Sept. 12, 1997
In the school of high-priced lawyers department, AISD will be forced to scrape by on a mere $165,000 budget for special legal services as it tries to negotiate a $42.7 million contract for technology services with IBM. AISD staff had unashamedly asked for $250,000 for services provided by Debevoise & Plimpton, a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in communications. Board members balked mightily at the price tag, complaining that the project is spiraling out of control. "I think our credibility as an institution is really in question here," said trustee Ted Whatley. In other money matters, trustees on Monday approved a tax rate of $1.40 per $100 valuation in order to fund its 1997-98 budget of $458 million. It's the lowest rate of any school district in the area. AISD formally adopts the measure September 15... -- R.A.
To view a picture from the front page of the July 13 issue of the Jakarta Post, in which Indonesian dictator Suharto pins the development medal of merit on the chest of Freeport-McMoRan CEO Jim Bob Moffett, go to the Chronicle website, -- R.B.
You won't want to miss the Gridiron Show's 20th anniversary, with present and past Austin mayors taking the stage in the name of comedy. The Society of Professional Journalists' annual spoof will feature a greatest hits lineup from the past 20 years. Two performances, Sat, Sept. 27 at the Paramount. For tickets, call 469-SHOW. -- A.S.
What a Racket
Here's a good one for ya: How many city and state transportation planners does it take to buy a bike rack? That remains to be seen, following Monday night's Austin Transportation Study (ATS) meeting, when the Texas Dept. of Transportation announced that seven federally funded bike-related projects -- five in Austin, one each in Pflugerville and Cedar Park -- needed to be bumped from this year's budget to fiscal year 1998. With the end of the fiscal year rapidly approaching, contracts for the various projects have not yet been let. The projects range from relatively mundane items, such as bike-sensitive traffic signal sensors and bike racks, to larger undertakings like the Shoal Creek Bike Route from Town Lake to Sixth Street. Though TxDOT failed to mention it at Monday's meeting, route signage for bike routes on Shoal Creek, Guadalupe, and East 12th St. -- in the budget since 1995 -- will also be bumped into 1998.
Ozone-friendly bicyclists have always felt unappreciated in this town, but three years to put up bike route signs? What's the deal? City of Austin bicycle coordinator Rick Waring says the problem is mainly with TxDOT. "It's like trying to turn an ocean liner around," says Waring of the slow-moving agency. The federal transportation law, 1994's Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), gave federal transportation funds to hundreds of tiny alternative transportation projects in cities all over Texas, and TxDOT apparently wasn't up to the task of administering them all. Waring is cautiously optimistic that TxDOT will back off somewhat under the next federal transportation bill (which will be finalized late this year), and assume more of an oversight role on small alternative transportation projects, like bike lanes, and focus instead on big-budget road and highway projects. -- N.B.
Inordinate Ordinance?
With a unanimous, 7-0 vote, the Austin City Council said grace last Friday afternoon over the interim ordinance dealing with the accidental repeal of SB1704. Outlined in last week's "Naked City," the ordinance provides buffer periods for current development projects to be completed under their original water quality regulations, gives incentives for those projects to voluntarily comply with current regulations, and provides expiration dates for future projects to hold onto the regulations in effect at the time the projects are initially filed.
Fine tuned to the bittersweet end, the interim ordinance also contains changes worked out at the 11th hour before the vote, narrowing the hardship criteria available to extend aging projects, and streamlining the appeals process by which extensions will be granted. "We heard some things in the public hearing the night before that we thought should be included," explained Council Task Force member Daryl Slusher.
Of course, not all observers were pleased with the outcome. "I know the Legislature is a threat, but does that mean we should just give away the store?" asked Steve Beers, Chair of the Conservation Committee of Austin Sierra Club, pointing out that no one really knows the effect of the new ordinance. Slusher, a long-time environmentalist who faced criticism from the greener element in the debate, sees the glass as half-full, albeit containing a grain of salt. "We have strictly paper projects that will not make it, but there are also projects doing due diligence, people really pursuing their projects, and it would have been hard for us to put those immediately under current ordinances," he said. In fact, it would have been impossible to subject either type of project to current standards under SB1704, be it the original incarnation or the version possibly looming next session. "Some close supporters wanted us to go all the way and put everything under S.O.S., and it's tempting. But that doesn't pass the appropriate governance test. It's not good governance to take advantage of an accidental repeal and mow everything down," Slusher added.
The interim ordinance in place, the council will now send a final version to the Planning Commission for consideration Sept. 23. A Council vote is expected in mid-October. -- J.S.
Truth or DARE?
Despite the fact there is mounting evidence that the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or DARE, doesn't work, it appears that the program will once again be funded in this year's city budget at a proposed cost of $496,248, down from last year's $547,021. The latest criticism of DARE came this spring from a report on school-based drug education programs, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, that echoed the conclusions of several other studies: DARE and other initiatives like it have practically no effect on whether children decide to use alcohol, tobacco, inhalants, or illicit substances later on in their lives. Even a 1994 audit of DARE by the City of Austin found that years of DARE instruction in AISD schools did not reduce referrals to juvenile court for drug-related offenses.
Nonetheless, DARE, launched in 1983 at the behest of then-chief Daryl Gates as a special project of the Los Angeles Police Dept. in L.A. public schools, remains the nation's most popular drug education program -- over 70% of school districts use it. DARE is administered by community police officers who are ostensibly trained to teach youngsters to resist peer pressure. Fifth and sixth graders receive up to 17 hours of their tutelage before "graduating" from the DARE program.
It may be the most expensive such initiative in the nation as well. DARE reportedly receives some $200 million in federal funds, but some estimates put the total price tag at $700 million, after funds from state and local governments and copious contributions from corporations such as Arby's, Citibank, and Packard Bell are taken into account. Some communities are throwing in the towel on DARE, and putting police back on the streets instead. Police departments in Seattle, Spokane, and Oakland have all scrapped the program. In Austin, however, anti-DARE sentiments have yet to take root. A proposal was made last year to cut DARE funding in half and use the remainder for more police officers. But no such action was taken this year, not even just to save money or dump a program that, statistically speaking, is a loser. -- R.A.
Royal Flush
Property owners at two commercial Rollingwood addresses just got hit with water bills that would make a brewer wince. For over 10 years, office buildings at 2901 and 3001 Bee Caves Road have been flushing wastewater into Austin's sewers free of charge because they were never added to the Water and Wastewater Utility's billing rolls. Now the city has come collecting.
"I can tell you it's certainly not dollars that are going to be in the budget," said property manager Karen Wendler when she first learned of the impending charge. Wendler handles the bills for Avallon-Braker, Ltd., one of three companies that have to divy up a $11,000 tab at the 3001 address.
Avallon-Braker paid the charge, but George Nalle, of Ellan Investments, suggested that legal action might be in order if the city tried to collect the $42,000 it says he owes for services at 2901 Bee Caves. "We paid all our bills," he protested. "They're going to have to show me that they haven't been billing me." Nalle has not responded to phone messages since the utility mailed his bill.
No one knows exactly how the properties were connected to Austin's sewer pipes without the utility's knowledge, but utility wholesale services manager Mike Erdmann has a theory. Because the tracts in question were developed and converted from septic tank systems just after Rollingwood received jurisdiction over the land in the early Eighties, Erdmann thinks the new buildings simply "fell through the cracks" in the Rollingwood city offices during the transition. Rollingwood, not the utility, has been supplying water to the properties, and since the Austin utility calculates sewage charges based on water consumption, it had no way to detect the flow, says Erdmann.
So much for Erdmann's theory. Rollingwood city administrator Cindy Selman has a copy of a 1985 letter her office sent to the utility director notifying him that the building at 3001 Bee Caves was to be hooked up to the utility's system. She also has an inspection report signed by a utility employee. Selman does not care to speculate about why the information failed to get recorded. "I only know what we did on our end," she says. "I would have assumed that it [the notification] would have been shared with the appropriate people." Utility public involvement director John Linton says the memo indicates that someone "intended" to connect to the system, but that no one paid the utility the official tap fee. So how is it that the connection was made anyway? "It's hard to say," says a perplexed Erdmann, "a lot of paper comes through this office." -- K.F.
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